


Pure Imagination

by beforethedawn, ConstructFairytales, Destinyawakened



Category: Hannibal (TV), Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Empathy, F/M, Gen, Hand Jobs, Hannibal and Will as parents, Hannibal is still a cannibal, M/M, Monsters, Murder, Plot Divergent, Psychokinetic Abilities, Retelling, Slow Burn, Smut, The Upside Down, Will is police Chief, abilities that are a mix of Psychokinetic and empathy, beasts - Freeform, blowing people up with mind tricks, different universe, hannigram AU, set in the 80s, stranger things/Hannibal (tv), you know the usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-08-12 15:13:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 48,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7939351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beforethedawn/pseuds/beforethedawn, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConstructFairytales/pseuds/ConstructFairytales, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destinyawakened/pseuds/Destinyawakened
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Police Chief Graham invites a Baltimore psychiatrist to Hawkins to talk to families and friends of Will Byers in the case boy isn't found alive. What they uncover in the process of looking for Will Byers goes beyond imagination.</p><p> </p><p>  <b> Or That time we thought it would be cool if Will and Hannibal had been in Stranger Things.</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1) There is no beta. We did some light editing.  
> 2) This does not follow the Stranger Things timeline perfectly. We've moved things around a bit to make it work for us. Not all parts from the show will be written out, as you've probably seen the show, why would you want to read it all over again? Some interactions are different, too, given Will and Hannibal are different. Everything is from Hannibal and Will's perspectives, but there is a lot of interaction with characters from ST.  
> 3) Like what you see? Join us on [TUMBLR!](http://constructfairytales.tumblr.com)

Shadows crept along the halls of the old abandoned building, an abandoned laboratory of some kind. Officer Graham sank into them as he went in, without backup, despite what he had been told. One perpetrator wasn’t going to take him down. He rounded a corner, and the scurry of feet on dusty planks brought his attention toward a window, a shadow that, like the outline of something he’d never seen on this earth before; large, beastial, with a human frame, the rest was hard to see. As Will turned the beam of his flashlight on it, rows and rows of teeth were all he saw before the searing pain hit him, and blackness took him under.

How long he was out, he had no idea.  There was a lot of blood, most of it pouring out from his own shoulder, onto the ground, where he lay bleeding out. Another officer held their hands to Will’s wounds, one in his shoulder, one in the leg. The perpetrator had been caught, or so someone was telling him. Back-up had arrived, thankfully, right as Will had been shot.

The pain threatened to take him under again, it was as though time slowed and came to a stop, and the flashes of blue and red lights  came slowly, the sirens howled in long drawn out, distant wailing.  The rest was a blur, but it ended with a nice long stay at the hospital, long enough for people to visit, long enough for others not to.

Finally, when he was ready to go back to work, a paper crossed his desk. It was a referral for a permanent post away from Baltimore, further west; Indiana midwest, to be exact. The post was in the small town of Hawkins, as Will would come to find out, a town that only had a few murder cases on file, and the last one was fifty years ago. The most criminal activity it had seen recently was from teenagers egging houses. It was a huge step down, mundane even, and yet, Will knew upon looking over the job description, that being Police Chief of this small, unexciting town might be exactly the sort of downtime he needed.

Will took the job, and for about three years the town went on, quiet and small. The worst thing Will ever dealt with were the neighbors complaining about the other people’s pets, mostly dogs, sometimes cats. He had his own place, a well kept mobile home on a nice stretch of land, where he had a few dogs of his own. Nothing spectacular, but Will Graham hardly needed anything exciting. Or at least he liked to think so.

Excitement was getting to sleep in, while he nursed a hangover. Routine was key.

When the weather started to get cold, and the leaves changed, a boy went missing. He was about twelve, Will garnered. The boy shared the same name as he did, another Will; Will Byers.

“You need to call someone in, a therapist of some kind, when you find this kid and he’s dead, they’re going to need someone,” Jim Hopper, one of the department’s best, said to Will as they walked through the old forest, flashlights searching all the ditches and holes a kid that age might go hiding. “Especially for his mother.”

Hopper, it was said, was decent, if not pretty good, friends with Joyce Byers, the boy’s mother, so it was no wonder his compassion levels were high here where Will usually hardly ever saw them outwardly displayed.

Will shifted his jaw. He’d had a friend back in Baltimore, Alana Bloom, she specialized in families, he could give her a call, of course, and see if she would do him this favor just this once. “I’ve got someone in mind.”

“Do you?” Hopper looked at him skeptically, crunching twigs and leaves under his big boots, a man at least with a twenty or so pounds on Will, not to mention height. “Oh that’s right, you’re from a big city. Probably know lots of people. Lots of connections, right?”

“Something like that,” Will sighed, taking a right when Hopper went left, people all around them still calling out for the kid, over and over again, but nothing was coming of it.

Will bent down by a large drainage pipe, light cascading over a piece of fabric on the ground, torn off from something. He grabbed it with one gloved hand, and looked it. Ahead of them, not far, was the  Hawkins Laboratories building. Will narrowed his eyes, he’d look into it after he got a therapist lined up.

***

Will called Alana Bloom, but unfortunately she said she was just too busy, and referred Will to her friend, Doctor Hannibal Lecter. Will stared at the name he wrote down and then dialed in the number, while he tapped his pen on the table, waiting for someone to pick up the other line.

“Good afternoon, Doctor Lecter speaking,” a smooth male voice with a European accent answered on the other end of the line after the third ring.

“Oh, good, this is the right number,” Will sighed, leaning in on his elbow as he held the phone to his ear. “I’m Will Graham with the Hawkins, Indiana police department. Alana Bloom gave your number as a referral.”

“Doctor Bloom? That is wonderful to hear, she is a respected colleague. With what might I help you, Officer Graham?” the doctor on the other end of the line asked. Classical music played quietly in the background of the conversation on the doctor’s end, and Lecter looked down at his latest patient’s corpse where it lay in the leather chair across from his mahogany desk.

  
Benjamin Raspail, a terrible flautist with the local symphony, had been suffering from a personality disorder, and his therapy was going nowhere.

“It might be a bit beneath you,” Will started to say, realizing this doctor might be far more sophisticated than Will realized, and they were far too under his radar. “We’re a really small town, and a boy has gone missing. He’s not expected to be found alive, and we could use someone to come and talk to the the boy’s friends, his grieving mother, his brother…”

Hannibal had begun to pour and sip from a glass of wine, but at the mention of the missing child, set his wineglass down before his lips touched it. He took a seat behind his desk, and there was a beat of silence on the phone. “It is always a terrifying ordeal when a child vanishes,” Hannibal murmured, and cleared his throat. “How old is the boy, if you do not mind my asking?”

"Twelve. He’s twelve,” Will answered, rubbing his forehead with his thumb and forefinger, working on a headache that he knew he wouldn’t be able to shake with a drink until this boy was found, dead or alive.

Hannibal looked at Benjamin Raspail where he laid dead in his chair, neck snapped, and opened a book of appointment times, glancing through them. “It’s fortunate you called when you did, a regular patient just cancelled his appointment with no notice.  My specialty is psychoanalytic therapy, particularly memory work. I hope Dr. Bloom did not give you the impression that I am a specialist in the field of grief counselling,” he said, in a courteous, even humble voice while he mentally rescheduled his  _ living _ regular clients.

“She said it was not your specialty, but that you were one of the best, and--” Will sighed, audibly, rubbing his eyes. “Look, sorry to bother you. I figured it was a long shot. I’m sure we’ve got someone closer to Indiana anyway. Thank you for your time, Doctor Lecter.”

“On the contrary, officer Graham, I have yet to refuse. I merely wanted to ensure that there were no misunderstandings as to my clinical background. I believe I can make some time for a trip, none of my patients require urgent attention, and clearly, this missing boy’s loved ones do.” Hannibal stood, smoothly, and walked to a polished shelf in his office, on which was displayed a gold, jeweled firefly that rested on a small pillow under a glass dome, separating it from the rest of the items in his office, as though to preserve and protect the delicate creature.

“We don’t even have a body yet, it might be useless for you to even make the time,” Will insisted, realizing they might just have to get someone a little more local, and little less experienced.

“A body is not necessary for a community to feel confusion and grief,” Hannibal sighed, and lifted the glass off of the firefly to hold it in the palm of his hand, delicate and dustless. “The period of wondering and searching can be the most terrifying and frantic time in a crisis such as this. Is tomorrow afternoon acceptable?”

Will went quiet, he was sure if given an out the doctor would take it. “If that works for you. Do you require somewhere to stay? We haven’t got a hotel or anything here, but I’m sure I could find you a room or somethin’.”

“That would be lovely, thank you. Are there any houses to rent?” Hannibal asked, as he put the firefly back on it’s pillow, and very carefully replaced the glass dome over it, protectively. “I prefer to have a kitchen to myself.” Hannibal looked back at Raspail, considering the mass of the former flautist’s body as he calculated the square footage of the largest piece of luggage he owned.

Will shifted his jaw as thought about it, there was one place. “Yeah, there’s a spot. I’ll see about getting you set up there, Doctor Lecter. Thank you for your time.”

“Thank you for contacting me. Shall I find my way to the station tomorrow afternoon and enquire after you?” Hannibal said, as he began to plan out precisely what to pack, and how much time he had to butcher Raspail.

“Yeah, unless ya need a ride from the airport, you can catch me at the station,” Will replied, and jotted down a note for himself on a sticky pad, and stuck it to his desk calender where he could clearly remember to see it.

“Excellent, tomorrow, then, Officer Graham,” Hannibal said, courteously.

Will nodded, even if the doctor couldn’t see him. “Tomorrow.” Will hung up the phone and stuffed the note into the pocket of his shirt, and stood, heading out to go home for the night and at least try to sleep a little bit.

***

The next day, in the afternoon, as promised, Dr. Lecter drove a shiny, elegant car through the small town, and parked it outside of the police station. He stepped out with an attache case in hand, and his long coat caught the wind as he stepped into the foyer, where the receptionist stared at him, openly. “Hello, I’m here to see Officer Will Graham,” he said, ignoring the open-mouthed way she stared at him.

“Oh, you mean the Chief? Just a sec…” she said and hurried back to find Will.

Will returned in her place, with the woman just feet behind him, looking at Will and the well dressed doctor until Will waved her off. “You got work to do?” Will reminded her, and stepped out from behind the desk, offering Doctor Lecter his hand out of obligation. He gave the doctor a once over, clearly not what he had expected. “Doctor Lecter?”

“Chief Graham,” Hannibal nodded, with a smile in his eyes when their hands touched, and clasped, amused by Will’s obvious surprise at his appearance. “You were expecting me to be older?” Hannibal asked, with a tilt of his head. His eyes scanned over the officer’s stunning face, and the halo of mussed, dark curls around his head.

“Alana said you mentored her, I assumed ...” Will sighed, averting his eyes from the doctors, not letting their gaze linger too long. He didn’t, however, apologize for his assumptions. He took his hand back. “I can take you to the house. It’s old. The kids around here think it’s haunted.”

Hannibal chuckled, and watched the chief closely, able to tell volumes from the other man’s little habits. “Fortunately, I have no fear of the occult. You neglected to mention on the phone that you were Chief Graham, I apologize for mis-addressing you so many times.”

Will gathered his police jacket and shrugged it on, showing the doctor back out, and gawked a little at the car the doctor rented. “It’s a small town, Chief doesn’t mean a whole lot when you only have five other officers.”

“Even so, it’s important to respect your position, particularly with what you have on your plate at the moment,” Hannibal said, and stood by his car, then offered Will the keys as he saw the young chief’s interest. “I’m afraid I am rather terrible with directions, would you care to drive?”

Will’s truck was parked by the side of the building, where he always parked. He looked at the keys being handed to him, “I was just going to have you follow me, I’ll need to get back here somehow.”

“Of course, that would also be acceptable,” Hannibal nodded, and looked around, at the sleepy little town he had come to. It was a far, far cry from Baltimore, but it was only temporary, and would allow Hannibal to develop a record of helpful co-operation with law-enforcement, which could come in handily, someday.  “After you, Captain.”

“Just… call me Will,” the police chief answered, and walked to his truck, and hoisted himself inside. It was an older truck, 1960-something, ran like hell, but he loved it. He pulled out and waited for the doctor’s car to follow behind him before  leading him along the backroads of town toward the quaint, dark house at the end of Mulberry Lane.

Hannibal followed Will after he watched him climb into his dusty truck. At the end of the long lane was an old, quite neglected, but undeniably beautiful house that caught Hannibal’s attention the second he laid eyes on it. He climbed out slowly, and brought some of his luggage with him as he stared up at the house. “Do you have any idea of the year that this was built? It’s a remarkable piece of architecture.”

“Early 1900s,” Will said, walking up to the door of the house, and then bent to pick up a potted plant there,a key was hidden under it, where the owner said it would be. Will unlocked the front door and pushed it open, letting Hannibal go through first. “No one’s lived in here for a while. I’ll have to light the pilot in the basement for you to get the heat workin’.”

Hannibal stepped into the dusty, but incredible house, and touched a banister that was carved out of what looked like a long, oak railing carved from a single massive piece of wood. He looked back at Will, and noticed the way the light caught the Chief’s wild curls. Two incredible finds in one day. “Thank you, I would be much obliged. How long have you lived in town?”

“Three years. They transferred me over from Baltimore,” Will said, with a little, uneasy smile, and then showed himself down to the basement, where he fiddled around with the pilot light, and eventually he got it lit.

Heading back up, he rounded the staircase, looking for the doctor. “It’s lit.”

Hannibal was in the kitchen, turning slowly as he surveyed the beautiful cabinetry and old tiles of the room, then looked at Will with a smile. “Thank you, Captain. I think I may be very comfortable here. If you don’t mind, I would like to know a little more about the case before contacting the family and friends of the missing boy.”

“His friends say that they had just finished some board game they’d been playing all day. They were riding home on their bikes. Will went his way, and never got home. We found his bike on Mirkwood-- uh, that’s what the kids called it. There’s, uh… no body yet though,” Will explained, slipping the house key onto the kitchen counter for the doctor. “We’ve looked everywhere his mother and brother said he might be, there’s nothing.”

“Have there been any other children reported missing in the last year? Even a day’s drive away from here?” Hannibal asked, his keen mind beginning to work on the case as another part of his mind redecorated the house.

“Further from here, sure. Usually the kids are taken by another parent or family member, they never stay missing,” Will sighed, arms crossed over his chest, leaning in against the door frame, the fall sun starting to settle into the backyard and through the back door. “I asked Joyce if it was possible her ex-husband took Will, but she insisted he wouldn’t do that. I’ve got Officer Hopper on it anyway. Just in case.”

“Have there been any children who have stayed missing?” Hannibal asked, and walked a little closer to Will, observing him.

“Not from around here.”  _ Not yet anyway _ , Will thought to himself, hoping to god that this blew over quickly and the kid was found, unharmed, and asking Doctor Lecter to come here had just been a precaution.

“Do you have children, Will?” Hannibal asked, as he found a kettle and rinsed it after managing to get water to come in a steady stream through the seldom-used pipes.

Will laughed, dryly at that. “No. I don’t. Never married either, if you’re getting personal.”

“It was my impression that everyone is rather personal in a small town,” Hannibal said as he turned on the stove and set the kettle on the element, then searched the cupboards for a teapot and two cups.

“We know when to mind our own business,” Will replied, a little crass, watching as the doctor started to put tea together, like it was the natural thing to offer the officer.

“Not fond of questions, or eye-contact, are you?” Hannibal chuckled, and opened one of his bags to pull out a small cannister of fine tea.

“Not really,” Will said, one foot crossed at the ankle over the other, where he leaned in the archway. “Eyes are too telling and not telling enough. I find out more about people than I care to.”

“What is it you see in people’s eyes?” Hannibal asked, and poured boiling water into the tea pot, then covered it as he washed the tea cups and saucers.

“What isn’t there to see? Wear, if they’re tired. Diseases.” Will sighed, looking at Hannibal’s feet more than he was at the man himself. “It’s overwhelming.”

“Do you have nightmares, Will? Trouble sleeping?” Hannibal asked, as he watched Will do his best not to engage in what Hannibal was beginning to suspect was a particularly singular gift.

“Sometimes,” the police chief said very quietly. He’d been getting the worst ones since he moved here, things that were seemingly otherworldly, and frightening.

Hannibal poured the tea, and handed Will a cup of tea, which was fragrant and exotic. “You’re horrified at the things you see, at the way your imagination blurs together the things that are yours and yours alone with what is contaminated by the emotions of those around you, their darkness, their intentions. You have nothing left that is your own, and you resent those noisy, needy people for it, for the way they disturb and muddy your fragile peace of mind.” Hannibal sipped his tea, and looked at Will over the cup. “This is a very long way from Baltimore, Will.”

Will stared down into the cup. There was good reason he never talked to doctors, especially ones like Hannibal Lecter.  He swallowed and blew on the tea. “And Baltimore was a long way from New Orleans. But here I am, just the same. It’s quiet here.”

“The problems are smaller, people have less to track through your mind with their dirty feet,” Hannibal observed. “How do you cope with the boredom, Will? You are not a creature designed for tedium and quiet.”

“Whiskey helps. We got some good fishing holes around here too,” Will answered, but he kept his answers as short as he could. “It’s nice of you to take a personal interest, but not needed, Doctor Lecter.”

“I’m sorry, Will. I am an observer, like yourself. It’s difficult to turn off, as you well know,” the dapper doctor smiled, and found himself staring at Will’s handsome face.

“Observe all you want, but I'm not the one that needs therapy,” Will murmured into the tea cup as he finally took a sip.

“Between you and I, I think those who voluntarily seek therapy seldom need it. Those who shy away from the monster that lives deep inside their psyches are the ones in need. That is most likely why most of my patients are simply lonely, rather than truly ill. Do you find this town lonely, Will?” 

“I’ve been alone my whole life. I choose to be,” Will explained, not fond of the tea, but he took another sip anyway to be as polite as he knew how. “This town is the best thing to happen to me career wise.”

“Alone and lonely are not always synonymous,” Hannibal observed and watched Will drink his slightly bitter tea, then moved to the cupboard to locate a sealed jar of sugar cubes, and brought them over.

Will watched the other man with careful, sea blue eyes that only left his form once the doctor was close to him again. He took a cube with a muttered ‘thanks’ and plopped it into the hot tea, watching it dissolve. “I have my dogs.”

“How many dogs?” Hannibal asked, with an amused air, and a sparkle in his dark eyes.

“Three right now. I have a small place, can’t fit more than that,” Will answered, and tried his tea again, a little less bitter now, and he hummed at how the hot liquid heated him to his core.

“They are your social buffer, I imagine? A way to diffuse the silence of being alone without requiring another person to understand the unique state of your mind?” He gave Will a sympathetic look, genuine, over the top of his tea cup. “Understanding is a rare thing to find, for some of us.”

“Do people ever really understand others?” Will understood anyone he let himself, honestly, he just preferred not to. Right now, he was doing his best not to look deeper into the Doctor, as making a friend in this situation wasn’t cordial or right.

“Some do. Friendship is not always such an uneven arrangement,” Hannibal said, as his gaze moved over Will. It was, much more than finding the beautiful but neglected house, like finding a masterpiece painting stuffed in the back of a dingy garage sale. He felt the strange and alien urge to get closer to Will, and poured Will some tea. “Those of us capable of understanding are like the sighted living in a world built for the blind. When we see one another, it is good to acknowledge the seeing, and the having been seen.” Hannibal poured Will a little more tea from the pot.

Hannibal had a strange and dangerous vibe that Will could not ignore, and yet it didn’t send him running, or leaving. Will accepted more tea instead. “You want me to see you. You’re trying to jump my barriers and my forts.” Will smiled ruefully. “You’ll be very disappointed.”

“Is that another barrier I hear?” Hannibal asked, almost with a wink, and met Will’s eyes when he smiled. “You erect them so quickly, I am very nearly impressed. We could always just socialize like adults, god forbid we become friendly.”

“Well, once we find this kid I’ll let you know when my schedule is free,” Will said, well aware that they were conversing now, and it was  _ not _ business related. 

Hannibal chuckled, dryly, and inclined his head in a nod. “What is your impression of this missing boy?”

“I’ve only talked to him a few times. Nice kid. I don’t think he’s hiding, like Hopper thinks. It doesn’t add up,” Will said, concern growing through him. “I don’t want to find him dead either.”

“The mathematics of human behaviour can be difficult, full of those ugly variables. What does not add up to you, Will?” Hannibal asked, happy to hear what the handsome, unique captain had to say in the matter.

“He left his friend’s house after a game, friends said he was happy, they raced. A bicycle is a treasure, especially for a kid like Will, they don’t have a lot. Why would he just leave it in the middle of the forest? Something else happened…” Will intended to go looking around a little more now that he’d gotten the town a very fine doctor to talk to should it come to that, especially Joyce and Jonathan Byers, the kid’s only family around here.

  
“What do you know of his family?” Hannibal asked, the wheels in his head turning as he watched one Will describe another.

“Parents are divorced. Mother works hard to give them what they need, his brother has a job, but he’s still in school. Joyce is a little…” Will canted his head and waved his hand a little, rocked side to side, “Off. But she means well.”

Hannibal raised his eyebrows at the gesture, and sipped his tea. “May I ask what precisely you mean by “off”?” Hannibal asked, his gaze lingering on Will’s throat as he canted his head to the side.

“Maybe a little unstable. I’m… not a doctor, and I’m not the best judge, considering…” Will took another swallow of his now warm tea, and shrugged his slim shoulders. “She’s not doing well. Her son said she thinks Will is trying to contact her through the phone, but not… like normal people would.”

“I see,” Hannibal said, and bit the inside of his cheek, which hollowed his already sharp cheekbones on one side. “I would be very interested in speaking to her first. You mentioned an older brother of the missing child?” Hannibal asked. Something in his eyes changed when he said the words ‘older brother’, as though the words aged him a few years, just to speak them.

“Jonathan, yeah. He’s been trying to keep it together for his mother, but they could both use…  _ something _ .” Will didn’t judge, he’d seen first hand how a single parents situation could go wrong, but the parents was trying, very, very hard. “Jonathan and Will were very close.”

Hannibal looked away for the first time since Will came up from lighting the pilot light, and nodded. “If you have their number, I will contact them immediately. Of course, a personal introduction from the Chief might garner more trust.”

Will ran a hand through unruly curls and nodded his head. “Now? Or do you want to settle and we can do that later?”

“I think now might be better. The family members of a missing child are an urgent matter. I can settle after I have spoken to them. Nothing I say will numb the agony they feel, of course, but I feel a duty to do what I can in this instance.”

Will finished his tea and set it in the sink, and dug his keys from his pocket. “They’re probably home. Phone’s out, you wouldn’t be able to call anyway.” 

“Thank you,” Hannibal said, and set his own teacup in the sink, then washed his hands, and followed Will to the front door. “Where is the family’s father, precisely? I imagine he has already been investigated?”

“Next town over. Jim Hopper’s on that,” Will explained, making sure Hannibal took the key he left on the counter for the house, and then stepped back out to the porch, to wait, so he could lead him to the Byers’.

Hannibal stepped out, and locked the door, then followed Will to his truck, looking it over before he climbed in. The seats were coated in dog fur, and Hannibal picked up a few strands to examine it. “You have at least one black and one tan colored dog?”

“Yeah. I do. Winston, and Wednesday, they ride in here the most.” Will got into the driver’s side, unable to help but chuckle at the disgusted look on Hannibal’s face when he found the dog hair. He started up the truck, the frame shaking a little as he did, and started off down the road.

Hannibal gave Will a sideways glance, and watched the town go by as Will’s rumbling truck escorted them down the streets, very, very loudly. “All of them strays whom you found in destitute condition?” Hannibal guessed, while sitting with great poise in the passenger seat.

Will laughed, one elbow up on the door as the other drove effortlessly through the roads, through the forests and trees that made up a lot of the town, making it seem creepier than it was, honestly. At least to someone normal, someone not like Will who saw the worst in most things. “How’d you guess?”

Hannibal looked into the woods, admiring them as they passed the darkness that even sunlight could barely penetrate. “You are far too empathic to refuse a stray animal a home, and I think you enjoy the quiet of their relatively undemanding company,” Hannibal said, with a look at the Captain as he drove. He admired Will’s hands, roughened with work, scarred here and there with little lines.

“I take in the ones  I can, help adopt out the ones I can’t keep,” Will explained, turning down another road, toward the drive to the Byers’ residence.

“So, you prefer to keep the ugliest dogs?” Hannibal asked with a knowing smile, and brushed a little more of the hair from the sleeve of his dark, plaid suit jacket. “I’m certain they appreciate that.”

“Winston is a handsome dog, I can’t say much for the other two,” Will explained, and pulled into the drive of a run down looking house, obviously very neglected.

“What made handsome Winston your exception?” Hannibal asked as they pulled up to the house. He could not help but feel a strange fascination with the Police Chief who was so much more than he wanted to let on. Will’s reluctance to be examined and observed only made him more mysterious, more alluring.

“Winston I found on the roads out here late one night when I first got here. He keeps tabs on me,” Will said, even more mysteriously, and then slid out of the truck, slamming the door shut to be sure it clicked back in place. He walked up the path to the door, and knocked gently. A middle aged woman peaked through the crack and then opened it all the way when she saw it was Will.

“Oh, hey, Will,” she said, shakily, as if using her missing son’s name was harder than she expected it to be. “Guess this isn’t a ‘we found him’ house call.” Her tone was hopeful for only a moment, but her big eyes fell once more when she saw only another man standing with the Police Chief.

“Not quite. This is Doctor Lecter. We’ve asked him to come talk to the town, to the families affected by Will’s disappearance,” Will explained, and Joyce started to shake her head.

“No, no. You brought him here in case…” she heaved a sigh. “In case…” She couldn’t even say, her dark eyes brimming with tears.

Hannibal stepped a little closer to Joyce. He cut a tall figure next to her diminutive size, but spoke gently. “Grief does not come only after a death. The fear and grief you feel right now, without knowing your son’s fate is just as deserving of support as grief after a funeral. My presence does not necessarily imply we do not think that your son can be found, I am merely here to guide and support you as we search, Joyce.”

“You’re a shrink,” Joyce accused, and looked at Will, wide eyed. “I’m  _ not _ crazy, Will.”

“No one is saying you are, Joyce. Doctor Lecter is just here if you want to talk,” the police chief said, watching Joyce start to wither a little, seemingly so much smaller than she had been before, her brows knit together, a mix of worry and anger.

“I do not think you are crazy, Joyce,” Hannibal assured Joyce as she began to withdraw. “I think you are coping with a situation no mother should ever have to handle. I am not here to judge your reactions, I am here to listen to you. If it helps, I have also suffered the loss of a child in my family. In dire situations, normality becomes a luxury one can no longer afford.”

Will turned his gaze to Hannibal very slowly, clearly unaware of this bit of information, but it did fit the profile, and why the doctor was eager to help. Joyce opened her door a little more, and gestured them both inside. Her house wasn’t perfect, it was run down and smelled of mothballs and mold, but it was the best she could do, honestly. She wiped down the sofa from dog hair so they had a place to sit.

“You got a new phone,” Will said, not taking a seat, but rather looking around to be sure everything was still fine here.

“Yeah… I went and bought a new one, just in case, you know…” She shrugged her petite shoulders with sad, side smirk, as if she were really trying to seem better off than she was right now.

“In case your son calls you?” Hannibal asked, as he sat down at Joyce’s invitation, politely. He would have to launder this suit, anyhow. “That is sensible.”

“He did try last night,” Joyce said, sitting down in a chair near the doctor, her hands nervously placed in her lap, fidgeting. “It was real staticky, and I heard his voice, and then the power surged and the phone blew up.” She nodded to the old one sitting on the side table by the couch, burnt.

Hannibal looked at the table, and nodded, then back to Joyce. “What did he say to you, Joyce? Was he able to give you information? Did he make only unintelligible sounds?” Hannibal rose to inspect the burned phone.

“Nothing I could make out. It was whispering and then screaming,” she said, starting to shake and get agitated all over again, unable to get to her son.

“He was distressed, and you were powerless to get to him. That is every parent’s nightmare. Whom did you tell about this encounter?” Hannibal asked, as he sat near Joyce again, very still, and very calm, observing her with an analytical gaze as though he could see right through her skin, into her body.

“Jonathan, my other son, and Will,” Joyce said, quietly, nodding at the police chief, who was doing his best not to be noticed.

Joyce looked as frazzled as Hannibal expected a mother would who was frantic to find her lost child, but given no direction in which to do so, no clues. “You are doing all you can, Joyce. May I return tomorrow to speak with you again?” Hannibal asked, courteously.

“If I’m here, yeah. The phone works, for now,” She said, as though afraid if she did pick it up again, it might burst into flames, and destroy yet another path to her missing son.

“I will come by in the morning. If you get another call, contact Police Chief Graham, and I will come to speak to you immediately. Is there anything you need help with before we go, Joyce?” Hannibal asked. His very presence was calm and rational in the midst of chaos, detached, but obviously concerned for his patient.

Joyce nodded her head slowly, and Will touched her shoulder before they left, closing the door behind them, the lights flickering in the house as they went. “Told you,  a little off.”  
Hannibal waited until they were in the truck to speak as he watched the house. “Proteins, the very building blocks of the human body, can endure extreme stress until they are changed to the point of non-functioning. Stress can render them something that is not at all what they were meant to be, they are de-natured, in a very literal sense. Some de-naturing is reversible, some is not.  I am not yet certain that Joyce has been permanently de-natured. She is obsessive, yes, but her child is missing. If ever obsession had a practical application, it is a situation just such as this. She needs direction, a task to do, a focus into which to channel her maternal rage and fear,” Hannibal said, as he watched the lights flicker.

Will shut the door of the truck and watched the electrical surge that seemed to be happening all through town lately. “What are you going to suggest she do then?” Will asked, pulling out of the long driveway, and back onto the main road to take Hannibal back home.

“The survival of our species is to be credited to the sheer power of a mother’s rage as much as it is to fire, or our ability to hunt. I intend to empower Joyce, to help her see that she is not as helpless as she feels she is. She has not yet given up hope, holding onto hope when a child is missing can be as painful as grasping a sword at the wrong end with one’s bare hands,” Hannibal murmured, knowingly.  “She feels certain that young Will is going to call her, perhaps he shall. Have you considered a trace on their line? I’m sure you have…”

“Have, for her peace of mind, and it didn’t lead back to anything. It was… blank,” Will said, he’d done it for Joyce last night when she told him about it, just to get her to get off the topic that her son called. The whole town was a mess since the last storm.

“Blank?” Hannibal repeated as they drove down the darkening roads in Will’s creaky truck. “Is that a valid result, or unexpected?”

“When you trace a call, it leads somewhere. It didn’t lead anywhere,” Will explained, pulling back down the street to the house Hannibal was going to occupy, and parked.

“How anomalous,” Hannibal murmured, and looked over at the curly-haired Police Chief. He was strangely adorable and aloof all at the same time. “I’m sure you are eager to return home to your dogs.”

“If I get home,” Will sighed, aware that he had things to finish at the station, left because he had show the new fancy doctor around.

“In that case, I shall not keep you. Thank you for everything, Will. I will contact the station with my number when I have one,” Hannibal said, and opened the truck door, stepping out, no matter how reluctant he was to leave the Captain’s company.

Will nodded slowly, waved the doctor off, and drove out of sight.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Edit and beta but us, which doesn't mean much. See something? let us know on Tumblr.  
> 2)Please keep in mind that we are not running exactly the same time line, everything is vague, as its sort of the same SL as Stranger Things, but with liberties and changes made to suit us. It's more from Will and Hannibal's POV so keep that in mind too.

_ Dark and murky, the ground squishing under the heel of his boot, giving out under swampy moss and dirt, Will made his way through lumbering trees and thick fog. Distinct quiet took over the forest, not even the chirping of crickets could be heard, just the slopping noise his feet made when he took a step, trudging through what felt like marshes from back home, back in New Orleans… _

_ As he walked, the fog grew thicker and the feeling of being followed started to creep up on him, for what felt like miles, and finally Will turned, staring at a stag, dark as nightmares. Beyond the stag towered a humanoid being, slowly walking toward them. _

_ “Run!” Will said, but the stag remained, and the creature ran towards them, just about to take the head off the stag when-- _

Around eight the next morning, the sound of sleeping dogs was interrupted by a polite knock on Will’s door, startling him out a sweat fueled nightmare. The scruffy brunet rubbed a hand over his face, and slowly got out of bed. He’d spent all night looking for the Byers kid, with only a piece of torn hospital gown to go on for leads, something he and Hopper personally investigated (only to be thrown out). He was overtired, probably why he’d had the nightmare at all.

Finally, after the second knock and the dogs going to the door, Will slipped out of bed and shuffled to the entrance, in just his threadbare boxers and a t-shirt.

Huffing a sigh, and then a yawn, he opened it, blinking at the blurry image of Hannibal Lecter, and had to rub his eyes again. “How’d you find me?”

“The receptionist at the station was kind enough to direct me,” Hannibal said, holding a few tupperware dishes in hand as his eyes glinted at Will, admiring his bedhead and the marks that a pillowcase left on his cheek. “May I come in?”

The dogs sniffed and whimpered until Will let the other man in. “Yeah, yeah, c’mon in,” he murmured groggily, and shut the door behind them.

The trailer was small, hardly room for more than one person to live there, but Will didn’t need much. The bed was in the living room, the kitchen small, but efficient. He turned a light on over the table and pushed a few papers into a pile and removed them. 

Hannibal looked around the modest abode, and set down the warm dishes of food with plates and place settings that he’d brought with them onto the table, dishing up breakfast, which smelled incredible. “I thought I would bring breakfast as an apology for my analytical ambush yesterday. It’s an egg scramble, with sausage, and fresh coffee,” Hannibal told Will, as he poured fresh coffee from a thermos into a small mug for the Chief.

Of course, Will had a coffee maker, but it still had yesterday's coffee in it. Or, he thought it was, it might be the day before’s. Since the Byers kid went missing, it was hard to know, the days blended into each other. “You made me breakfast?” He pulled out the chair opposite of Hannibal and took a seat, only then realizing his state, and tried to pat down his hair some.

“The number of restaurants available is somewhat limited, and I was sure taking you to one would mean you would be stopped and socialized with by every familiar face that passed you,” Hannibal explained as he laid a fork near Will’s plate with a knife, and then took his own seat opposite Will. “I am also very careful about what I put into my body, and I do enjoy the chance to cook for someone besides myself.”

“Only place we have around here is Benny’s, and he committed suicide the other night,” Will said, forking eggs and sausage into his mouth with a little hum. “This is really good. Thank you.” He sipped the coffee, just as impressed.

“Thank you,” Hannibal said with a soft smile, and watched Will enjoy the meal with a gratified gleam in his dark eyes, then sipped his coffee. “Are there a fair number of suicides in this town?”

“Nope,” Will replied, taking another two bites before going on, “didn't know Benny well, but no one expected it of him. It’s always the ones you don't suspect, though.” Still, it didn't settle right with Will, something was definitely off.

Hannibal watched Will closely, as he took a bite of flautist sausage, then sipped the coffee he had made just as he suspected a Police Chief used to bottom-of-the-pot-dregs might find strong enough, but a refreshing change. “You seem unconvinced. I do not suppose the restaurateur knew our missing Will, did he?”

“Everyone in town knows everyone,” Will explained, looking over at Hannibal, wondering if bringing a doctor who specialized in memory was a good thing. He should have insisted on Alana, and yet still there was something about the doctor sitting across from him that alluring in ways Will couldn’t quite place. A darkness, something that seemed to shroud the other man like a thin veil.

Dangerous.

“Did he commit suicide without any warning signs before or after young Will vanished?” Hannibal asked. “It seems rather coincidental, does it not?”

“Shortly after. As I said, no warning signs,” Will sighed, taking another bite, nearly finished. “Someone said he was helping out a kid that night, but there was no sign of the kid. Asked if it was Will Byers, they said definitely not.”

“One child disappears, another enters a man’s life shortly before he is found dead. If anyone could feel the warning signs of a cheerful man’s self-destruction, it would be you. Perhaps there is a disturbance beneath the benign surface of this town to blame…”

Will sipped his coffee and then licked his bottom lip. “Like a conspiracy of some sort?” Things were getting strange, suddenly everything was happening at once, even electrical surges that seemed ordinary at first were more than they seemed. The darkness from his dream seemed to be seeping into his reality as Hannibal talked, the other man’s eyes turning demonically dark as he spoke.

“The best way to hide darkness can be in plain sight, in the banal and cheerful fabric of everyday small town life. More sausage, Will?” Hannibal offered from the tupperware dish with a welcoming smile.

Will stared at the other man for a long moment, shaking his head, clearing the imagine. “No thank you.” His appetite was suddenly squashed at the very thought of what kind of darkness would be lurking in their little town, of what it was that lead him to call Hannibal Lecter here, and to what darkness did the doctor possess himself… and Why did Will want to reach out and  _ touch _ it.

“The very transparency of a closely-knit small town can make it difficult to make associations that seem far-fetched for fear of being labeled paranoid. Stigma here is far stickier than in urban life, harder to shake.”

“Like Joyce?” Will had started to believe that maybe her son did call, how? He wasn’t sure, but he could get inside the minds of people and think like them,  _ know _ them. Joyce was different, but she wasn’t crazy.

“Like Joyce. Ensuring that someone acts ‘crazy’ is a very effective means of discrediting them,” Hannibal pointed out, and leaned back in his chair to look at Will over the table. “Under what circumstances could a missing boy call his mother, only to have that call interrupted by a power surge?”

“Something covered up. Or, paranormal, but that would suggest the boy is dead,” Will offered, not one to believe in the latter quickly, but it could only really one of the two.

Hannibal smiled a little at Will. “Do you believe in a life after death, Will?” Hannibal asked, with a sip of his coffee before he refilled Will’s from the thermos.

“Not really, no. Not saying it doesn’t exist, but I’ve never seen evidence of it,” Will said, thanking Hannibal quietly for the refill.

“There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio,’ as Hamlet might have said,” Hannibal said, philosophically. “There are many questions about our world and other worlds that no one can answer.”

“Probably best,” Will said, chewing the inside of his cheek, thoughtfully. The word ‘dreamt’ hit something hard inside him, sending him into a thoughtful gaze, not really looking at Hannibal, but beyond him. Will’s dreams, like his thoughts, were not often tasty or delightful.

Hannibal observed Will’s reaction, closely, and wondered about Will’s mental associations to the word. “How did you sleep, Will? I hope I have not deprived you of rest.”

“I was up all night, home this morning at four,” Will answered, and yes the other man had, but Will bit his tongue on that one. “I don’t sleep much or well anyway.”

“How are your dreams of late? Hardly as good as breakfast, I’m sure?” Hannibal asked, knowingly, as though he could see right into Will’s astounding mind.

“Gruesome,” Will said, taking another sip of coffee, but not offering much more than that. He wasn’t looking for a friend, but Doctor Lecter seemed to be on the road to at least  _ trying _ .

“If you wish to discuss them, I am more than willing to listen,” Hannibal said, diplomatically.

“I’m sure, being the sort of doctor you say you are, I’m sure I’d make very interesting subject matter for a book, or article?” Will heaved a sigh, he knew all about the types that wanted inside his mind, it was one reason he took this job instead of going into the FBI to teach. He  _ had _ to get away from those who wanted nothing more than to pick his mind apart.

“I assure you, publishing a work on you is not at all my intention,” Hannibal chuckled. “Do you dream of the boy?”

Will sat back in the chair, legs sprawled a little, mug held in both hands on his chest as he considered the question, a very distant look in his eyes. “Not exactly. I don’t… think?” His brows knit together, worried. “It’s… too dark.”

“Somewhere subterranean, perhaps?” Hannibal asked, as he leaned over the table now that they were done eating, hands folded together.

Slowly, Will shook his head. “It’s more complicated than that.” He  waved off the idea. “They’re just dreams. I’ve had vivid ones since I was child. Over active imagination.”

“Intuition is the part of our minds that processes the information the rest of our busy mind filters out as unimportant. Our dreams are an assemblage of information from the day, things your conscious mind may have over-looked, or dismissed as improbable.”

“Thus, why they are dreams,” Will pointed out, sighing heavily. He’d dreamt only a little before Hannibal got there, most dark, mostly foggy, hard to see. Nothing like any place he’d seen on earth before, and very familiar.

“When we have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,” Hannibal said, as though quoting from a book. “Will Byers cannot communicate with his mother if he is dead, therefore, he must be alive somewhere. Perhaps your mind has dismissed something too quickly, Will, missed some tiny detail, some ridiculous association, and your dreams are leading you to it. Have you had this dark dream before?”

“Since I moved here,” Will whispered, brows raised, but he didn’t look at Hannibal, just the wall behind him. “You’re suggesting something like science fiction.” It was what Hannibal did not say that caught Will’s attention, or perhaps it was that his mind was finally believing the things he’d seen for over three years now, the tiny pieces of the puzzle coming together.

“What I am suggesting is that I have years of experience listening to the idle neurotic prattle on about their dreams, but yours may actually hold weight, Police Chief Graham,” Hannibal said, and almost winked as he sipped his coffee.

“Because a boy is missing? Because someone killed themselves, because--” Will was cut off by the phone ringing, and he turned to look at it on the counter before setting his mug down to grab it. “Sorry.” He picked up the phone, “Hello?”

There was silence for a moment, and then Will was getting up to take down a number on a piece of paper lying around. “Yeah, thanks, I’ll go talk to them.” Will hung up the, sighing, looking over at Hannibal. “There’s another missing persons report that just came in for Barbara Holland.”

Hannibal nodded and poured Will a little more of the hot coffee from his thermos, then looked at his legs as his boxer shorts exposed them, memorizing the curves of muscle in them. He must be a runner…

Will folded the paper and put it… well he was going to put it in his pocket, realizing he was still in his underwear, and looked over at Hannibal, flushing when he caught the doctor looking. “I have to go talk to the last person that saw her.” Will rummaged around near his bed for his pants and shirt, the dogs following him around as he did. He sat on the edge of the bed and put his boots on, and gave each dog a little pet.

Hannibal stood, and collected all the dishes with a slight flush across his high cheekbones. “May I offer my assistance?” he asked, as he went to Will’s kitchen, washed a travel mug for him with a little frown at the state of it, and transferred the hot coffee into the travel mug for Will.

“If you want. We can check in on Joyce after,” Will offered, trying to comb a hand through his unruly curls. He bent and gave the dogs some food and then water, and patted their heads. He’d come back later to let them out.

“That sounds ideal,” Hannibal murmured as he watched Will with his dogs, inferring a great deal from every detail of his behavior.

Will grabbed his keys, and opened the door for Hannibal, taking the thermos from him with a little nod of thanks. “Want to drive my truck?” he asked, teasing a little from remembering Hannibal had asked him the same thing the day before.

“I’m sure you’re jesting,” Hannibal said in return as they headed out to the rusted, metal beast Will enjoyed driving.

“Am I?” Will canted his head at the doctor as he unlocked the truck and hopped up into the driver’s seat, taking Hannibal’s comment as clear ‘no’.

Hannibal stepped up, into the passenger side of the truck, dismayed to find it just as hairy as the day before. “I do appreciate a dry wit as much as I do a dry wine. Do most people find it difficult to know whether or not you are joking?” Hannibal’s knuckles brushed Will’s hip as he buckled his seat belt.

“I don’t joke with a lot of people,” Will answered, his mood sombering in tone as he started the truck, sorry that he had even tried honestly. He was terrible with friendships, let alone anything  _ else. _

Hannibal, however, was smiling over at Will, and observed his features in the morning sunlight as Will drove them past Hannibal’s fancy car, and onto the main road. “I will drive us back,” he promised.

“I’m not sure a truck quite your thing, actually,” Will said, watching the road, the window rolled down on his side despite the fall chill, fingers skimming the roof.

Hannibal watched Will as the sun shone through his shirt where his jacket parted. His shirt was thin, terribly so. “You might be surprised by what I am capable of…”

That smile appeared back on Will’s face as he glanced over at the doctor, often surprised and yet not terribly so at the same time. “Okay. I’ll let you drive, I’ll be your co-pilot.”

“Very well, we have a deal,” Hannibal said with a gleam in his eyes. A strand of hair fell loose from the neatly swept back style he wore it in when Will hit a bump in the road, and he smiled over at Will. “I’ll have to put the seat back, of course,” he teased.

“Are you making fun of my height?” Will asked, deliberately going over another pothole in the rickety roads, just to spite the doctor, but the police chief had a rare,  _ happy _ , smile on his face.

More of Hannibal’s light brown, ashy hair fell into his eyes, loose now from the rough ride, and he held Will’s eye contact. “Is that a sensitive subject for you?” the doctor asked, with a sparkle in his eyes that looked the color of honey in the sun. “Are you about to become  _ short _ with me?”

The doctor’s gaze distracted Will enough that he was almost too late when a kid bicycled by quickly, and he slammed on the brakes, cursing under his breath. The kid skidded off to the side of the road, fine, and waved Will.

“Sorry, sir!” Mike said and hurried off quickly.

“He should be in school,” Will said, looking at his watch.

Hannibal looked at his own watch, then at Will. “In a town with one missing child, and another no one can identify, perhaps we should escort him there?”

Will patted the side of his truck to get  Mike’s attention. “Hey. Get in. We’ll take you to school.”

“Uh … I … I’m okay, Chief, I’m just going now,” Mike smiled, nervously, and Hannibal tilted his head at the boy.    
  
“He is hiding something,” Hannibal whispered.

“It’s his sister who called in the missing person,” Will said in a low tone to Hannibal, watching Mike go through the woods, but he wasn’t heading to school, he was heading back to his house. “But he’s been actively looking for Will since he went missing, despite what we’ve asked him and his friends  _ not _ to do.”

“That is likely precisely what is more important than going to school at the moment,” Hannibal sighed, and watched the boy bike off through the little trails in the dense woods. “Children can be cruel, they can also be unwaveringly loyal, the very best and very worst of human nature in miniature.”

Will was torn between going after the kid and just continuing on. He’d settle for getting to the high school to talk to Nancy Wheeler, and calling Mrs. Wheeler from there. “Wouldn’t know,” he said, pressing the gas again, he carefully sneaked a look over at Hannibal, smiling a bit know, and then his eyes were back on the road.

“You were an only child?” Hannibal asked, softly, and let his eyes travel down Will’s sleek throat, to the spot where his shirt was open at the neck.

“I was. My mother ran off when I was a baby,” Will replied, quietly, but very indifferent about it. He never knew his mother, he didn’t have feelings toward her one way or the other.

Hannibal listened, and then, “both of my parents died when I was quite young, but I count myself lucky that I was able to know them at all. I am sorry your mother did not find herself able to stay.”

The doctor risked a soft touch of his palm to Will’s shoulder, in sympathy, then removed his hand before Will could find it too intimate. Too late for that, Will felt a shockwave roll through his body at the touch, and that feeling of darkness was back, and yet still not as terrifying as he knew it should be. In fact, it was almost  _ nice _ .

“My father says she was a lot like me. He wasn’t surprised she ran off,” Will shrugged, snapping out of stupor, eyes on the road, and looked at Hannibal while at an intersection, no other cars around as everyone was at school or work.

The sun shone through Hannibal’s hair, lighting it up a soft almond and wheat shade as he considered that. “Too sensitive, perhaps, to consider herself good enough to raise you,” Hannibal said, and looked at Will.

“And you’ve now reached the conclusion I came to and why  _ I _ don’t have any children,” Will said and started to drive again, enough being distracted. He pulled into the high school parking lot, teens bustling about.

“Certainly, it would be very difficult to share the emotions of an infant and toddler if one felt unsupported by one’s spouse,” Hannibal said, and watched Will as he drove, admiring his absolutely flawless profile.

Will couldn’t fault that argument considering how un-proactive his father was in parenting. He pulled up to the fireline and parked the truck, getting out. “You’re not wrong,” he murmured, shutting the door. Nancy was standing by a pole, obviously waiting for him.

She looked warily at the other man with the police chief, brows furrowed with worry, and went to Will’s side. “I…” she whispered so no one would hear them. “I think Barb is missing. We were together last night, and I- I haven’t seen her today.”

“She didn’t go home?” Will asked, though he had a feeling there was a lot more to this story, and that sense of dark dread gripped his heart.

“Well, I told her to. I was with Steve,” Nancy said and Will nodded his head, understanding now.

“Where did you see her last?”

“Steve’s, by the pool. I went to check on her and she was gone, I thought she left,” Nancy answered, fretting a little.

“Your friend, Barb. Is she the sort not to return home at night? Or is she rather fastidious? Seldom late for anything?” Hannibal guessed from the girl’s distressed face and body language.

“Barb has never been late for anything. Ever. She didn’t even want to go! I made her,” Nancy sighed, chewing her bottom lip between her teeth. She already felt guilty enough for what had happened before Barb left, but now that she was  _ missing _ …

“We’ll go look for her,” Will insisted.

“Her car, I saw it parked down the street from Steve’s.”

“Did you have a falling out before she left? Is it possible she is simply avoiding you?” Hannibal asked Nancy, with a shrewd tilt of his head. Nancy felt guilty, the sort of guilt that came from being partially responsible for someone leaving alone and early.

“She didn’t want to stay, and she wanted me to leave with her,” Nancy explained, very quietly, all the other kids were in class now. She swallowed. “She wouldn’t just miss class to avoid me. She even comes to school sick!”

“We will look for her, thank you, Nancy. The moment we know something, we will let you know. Is Barb’s family aware that she is missing?” Hannibal spoke as though he and Will were a team.

“I… I called her mother to see if she was home, and she said she wasn’t,” Nancy said, knowing that everything was going to get turned around now, her own mother was about to find out what she’d really done.

“Thank you, Nancy,” Will reiterated, “We’ll handle it from here.” Will touched a hand to Hannibal’s back to lead him toward the truck again. He handed him the keys with a knowing glance.

Hannibal took the keys from Will, and felt their fingers brush for an instant as he savoured the touch to his back. Will’s hand was warm through his suit coat and vest, especially in the November chill. He opened the passenger door for Will first, courteously, then climbed in the driver’s side, and smirked as he set the seat back a few notches to accommodate his long, long legs. “Where shall we start,  _ Chief Graham _ ?” Hannibal asked, as he started the truck, and put it in gear.

“Should probably check in on Joyce, and then start from there,” Will said, buckling into the passenger side, watching Hannibal the way he hadn’t been able to until now, his mind and eyes not just on the road.

Hannibal seemed able to drive the truck just fine. He used the clutch and shifted smoothly … as smoothly as the truck would allow him to, anyhow. His thighs flexed under the fitted trousers, and his shoulders looked wider as he drove the lumbering beast down the road, sun in his honey-brown eyes. “Very well. A shame we haven’t received word from her overnight,” Hannibal said, as he turned the large wheel toward Will and frowned at the lack of power-steering in this vehicle.

“You really have to work it with your arms,” Will said, not minding at all watching the elegant doctor have to work at it. “Take a left and then a right. I’m sure she’s fine…”

Hannibal’s arms flexed under his jacket as he cranked the wheel to the left. Even muscle in his neck, beneath his starched collar flexed, betraying the superb tone of what lay beneath layers of immaculately ironed cloth. “And then a right…” Hannibal nodded, cranking the wheel the other way after shifting to steer the truck around the curve. He leaned a little toward Will as he did so, just near enough that Will could smell his expensive, very subtle cologne.

“Yeah, you… you got it,” Will said, quietly, distracted for a second as they now neared Joyce Beyer’s place again. Hannibal Lecter was drawing things out of Will that weren’t just mental, or dreams, but physical ones too.

“I really must introduce you to a vehicle with power steering,” Hannibal said, before he stopped the truck in front of the house, and put it in park, then shut it off with a smile at Will. “A thrilling, if not primitive ride.”

“And here I thought you were past being rude,” Will said, sliding out of the truck, grabbing his gun from the back this time and buckled the holster around his waist. He hated to have it out around the kids at the schools if it wasn’t needed.

Hannibal climbed out of the truck to meet Will at the back of it, and watched Will put the gun on his hip. “I would hate to think I was rude, I prefer to think of our banter as repartee…”

“It is,” Will replied, a smile on his face where he’d been teasing right back. He touched Hannibal’s arm and walked up to Joyce’s door again, noticing she put Christmas  lights up since last night. “Joyce?”

The mousy woman opened the door, looking at them both with big, dark eyes. “It happened  _ again _ , Will. It… it blew the phone, and then I heard music coming from his room,” she said, excitedly, as if she’d figure out something-- something to get her son back, somehow. “I went in there, and…” she opened the door letting them enter again, and then shut it. “I saw something trying to come into the house through the wall.”

“Through the wall?” Hannibal asked, with a tilt of his head, and then looked into the house, curiously. “May we see?”

Joyce lead them down the hall to her missing son’s room. “Here, but… there’s nothing there, you won’t see it…”

Will looked Skeptically at Hannibal, but as he stepped into the room, a chill ran down his spine, and started to see everything in almost a negative, dark and dreary like his dreams, and when he went to touch something, he snapped out of it, his eyes having been rolled back into his head. Will shook a little and stepped out of the room quickly. He was freezing and starting to sweat all at once.

Hannibal followed, catching up in two long steps, then steadied Will with one arm around his waist. “Will? Perhaps you should sit down. Do you have a history of seizures?” Hannibal asked calmly as he guided Will to the closest chair.

Joyce was getting Will a glass of water, and he shook his head slowly, letting Hannibal guide him to sit, and took the offered glass, but mostly just held it. “No… I don’t think so…” He looked up at Hannibal. “Did I…?”

“Your eyes began to roll back, and you were trembling, yes,” Hannibal said and checked Will’s eyes under the light, then took his pulse with two fingers against the side of Will’s throat. “Do you feel as though you have been unconscious?”

Will’s skin was damp to the touch, he felt like he’d been running, his heart hammering. “No. I mean… I wasn’t here, but I was…”

Joyce stayed back and watched them, taking in what Will was saying. “Did you see where my Will was?”

The police Chief blinked at Joyce. “Maybe?” He took a deep breath. Furrowing his brows a little as he thought about it. “Maybe…”

Hannibal pulled out his pocket square, and used it to blot Will’s face, gently, then ran it under cool tap water, and laid it over the back of Will’s neck. “What did you see?”

Joyce was on the edge of her seat, hands wrung tightly together, waiting to hear, hoping for  _ anything _ . Will looked down at his feet, unable to stop seeing the fog that littered the ground before, looming and musky, and everything smelled like ash and sulfur. He didn’t dare let his eyes close again though, not wanting to worry the doctor or the lady again.

This was starting to feel like far more than just simply his ability to empathize and work his imagination into the situation. There was a connection, something he couldn’t quite… grasp.

“It was your son’s room, Joyce, but darker. Vines and overgrown plants, I think they were plants…” Will shivered at the thought, watching a long tentacle like thing slither across the ground that only he could see, and the lights flickered. On the wall, Joyce had started to hang christmas lights throughout the room, and over the ceilings.

“You saw the house as it is, but as though in a shadow world?” Hannibal asked, quietly. His tone indicated that he was taking everything Will said very, very seriously.

“Like a dead world?” Joyce asked, her voice cracking a little at the thought.

“No,” Will said, shaking his head. “Just here but dark. Cold. Different.”

“When the figure was reaching through the wall, did any part of it manage to break through to your side, Joyce?” Hannibal asked, curiously, and looked up at the lights. Wheels were obviously turning in his refined mind. The laser of Lecter’s intellect began to focus on the problem at hand.

“No, I ran. I don’t think so,” Joyce said, stammering.

Will handed Hannibal back his pocket square and stood, sipping the water in his hand. “Whatever this place is, I think your son is there.”

Joyce nodded, she’d thought that to, she didn’t know what this place  _ was _ exactly. “There has to be a way to get to him…”

“There is a widely held belief, in physics, that ours is not the only universe. Many theorists maintain that infinite, parallel worlds exist. They are likely very much like our own, with a few differences. Typically, these universes never intersect. However, an event of immense energy, with power far beyond what man is now capable of could, in theory, breech a hole between two universes, a hole that may not close, into which someone could wander.” Hannibal looked up at the lights as he spoke, sheets of calculations running behind his dark eyes as he held the cloth to Will’s neck where he stood.

“But someone would have to open that hole that first,” Will whispered, mesmerized by the lights for a moment, as they blinked and twinkled. “You need to be careful, Joyce. Until we figure this out and how to get your son back.”

Hannibal touched Will’s hand where it curled around the glass of water, encouraging him to drink it, wordlessly. “The Chief is correct, caution is advisable, in this situation. We may be playing with forces far beyond what we can control, what we can understand. I will send you a new phone, at once. Where is Jonathan?”

Will downed the water and handed the glass to Joyce, who took it and held it. “Jonathan is in school. He’s putting up flyers, too. You know, just in case.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) The usual, not beta'd, edited over by us, see something bad? Let us know on [tumblr](http://constructfairytales.trumblr.com) please!  
> 2) Again, please keep in mind that we've altered events and when they taker place in Stranger Things to fit up with the story we're telling and as not to bore you!

Will fell asleep on the way back to his place, letting Hannibal drive again. His mind wandered, sleepy and tired, as it backtracked into the _murky dark of the negative world that seemed to be dragging people over and doing god knows what with them. In a small little completely dark portion of forest, was a girl, small, frail in body but not at all frail of mind. Just as Will was walking toward her, and her to him, he was woken by the sound of his name._

“Will? We are at your house. I think it’s advisable that you rest after your episode.” Hannibal had let Will drift off as he pulled Will’s truck into the gravel driveway of his mobile home, and turned off the engine. He watched Will for a moment, and smiled just a little, to himself before climbing out, and opening Will’s door to help him out of the truck. 

Will murmured something, and slumped out of the truck, one hand on Hannibal’s shoulder. “Got too much to do.” He looked at Hannibal up close, blinking half tired, half glazed over blue eyes at him. “Gotta check in on that Barb thing.”

“Indeed,” Hannibal agreed, and rested one hand against Will’s back to support him. “Is there no one you can designate to look into that? From what I witnessed at the house, you had a seizure, of sorts, the electrical impulses in your brain have been scrambled. You require rest and care.”

“I’ll call the station, get Hopper to do it,” Will said, though he was sure they wouldn’t mind being called off kid search to search for another one. He let go of Hannibal when he was sure he had his footing again, and put his palm out for his keys to his home.

Hannibal put the keys in Will’s palm, carefully, the key to his front door already selected for him, and Hannibal stayed very close as they walked slowly to open it. “That is wise. Do you have any medical conditions you are aware of?”

“Nope,” Will said and unlocked the front door, the dogs rushing out to do their business as Will sidestepped them, slowly, careful not to trip over them. He threw his keys down on the counter and then picked up the phone to call the station. A few minutes later, he took his holster off and set it down on the bed. “Happy now?”

“Quite. If you don’t mind laying down, I would like to take your pulse again,” Hannibal said patiently, determined to discover more about the Police Chief who had visions and seizures after walking into a child’s room. Hannibal was a devotee of the strange and rare, and he found himself in the midst of the strangest, most rare set of circumstances he could think of.

Kicking off his boots by the bed, Will sat on the edge, undid his belt, and then laid down, eyes closing half way, watching the ceiling, wondering if his lights would blink, but nothing ever happened. “You’re a real doctor too?”

Hannibal chuckled to himself at the question, and took Will’s wrist this time, then rested his fingers in the little cranny where Will’s pulse lived. He counted the beats silently as he stared at Will’s drowsy, worn soft eyes. “All psychiatrists are medical doctors, yes. I worked for many years as a surgeon before taking up psychiatry, instead.”

“That’s not that surprising,” Will muttered, letting his eyes flit over to Hannibal’s once he was convinced the room was not going to turn dark on him again.

“No? My apologies, I shall try harder next time,” Hannibal teased softly, and touched the pulse in Will’s throat again for a moment, with feather-soft fingers.

Canting his head back, Will swallowed thickly when he felt Hannibal’s fingers there, eyes focused on him now, with a wary, tired smile. “Will you?”

Hannibal smiled down at Will, an unreadable glitter in his dark eyes as Hannibal touched Will’s hair for a moment, felt his forehead, and then covered Will with a blanket from the bed. “Someday, I’m sure you will find me very interesting, despite yourself.”

“Shame you're here only until we find the kid,” Will murmured, feeling himself fading fast, everything was starting to blur. Above him Hannibal's face started melt and disappear, the room growing dimmer and dimmer. Will  shut his eyes tightly. “I need to call Mrs. Wheeler…”

“When you wake,” Hannibal nodded, his hand still against Will’s face as he closed his eyes. “I’m certain her daughter will tell her everything she needs to know long before you make the call.”

Will's exhausted body couldn't keep him awake any longer, and the police chief dropped under into a deep, but fitful sleep. _ Darkness and fog engulfed him, and when he opened his eyes, the dreams from the night before seemed to start where he left off, but the stag was nowhere to be seen, nor the monster. Walking through the dense layers of low hanging fog and clouds of moisture, Will could smell the sulfur and musk just like it was real. Music could be heard, from a far distance, The Clash, he was pretty sure. Will followed it, for what felt like hours, the source died out and everything was still and quiet, save for the low, shallow breathing of someone else in the area, which happened to be the Byers’ residence, or looked to be, hard to tell with all the overgrown plants and vines. _

_ “Hello?” a voice called out and just as Will turned to see the young Will hiding behind the couch, making eye contact with him, he heard a snarling growl behind him. _

_ “Give me your hand let's get out of here!” Will said reaching to take the boy's hand, but the second he gripped Will jolted awake, _ sweating, gasping, and gripping Hannibal instead.

“Will?” Hannibal said, his hand in Will’s hand, letting him clutch all he needed to as he thrashed in bed. The dogs stood nearby, concerned, and Hannibal helped Will up, into sitting. “You were shouting.”

Shaking, trembling, cold and hot all at once, Will only squeezed Hannibal's hand tighter. The sun was in another spot, hours had passed. “The boy. He's there, and something is chasing him.”

Will’s house was neater now, cleaned, and the dogs were eating from their bowls before they had gone to see what what the matter with their human. Winston jumped up on the bed to nuzzle Will’s face. “Something human?” Hannibal asked, without an ounce of skepticism.

“No,” Will said quietly, not letting go as he shook, sweating through his clothes, though he had been cold in the dream, he was overheated in waking life. “Not… not human.”

Hannibal sat on the edge of Will’s bed, and smoothed his sweaty hair back, as though comforting a child after a night terror. “Can you describe it? Might you be able to draw the beast?”

It was so vivid in Will’s mind he wished he had the ability to draw it. He closed his eyes, almost afraid of slipping back under, of going to a place he never wanted to go again. “Human-like. No face, it’s head resembles a… flower, like a, uh…. Tulip, maybe?”

Hannibal found a pencil and a pad of notepaper, and did his best to sketch as Will spoke. “Tall? Short?” he asked, as he drew.

“Tall, taller than you,” Will said, watching the doctor. Figured he’d be artistic too.

Hannibal sat next to Will again, in bed, his back against the headboard. “What were his hands and feet like?”

“I didn’t get a close enough look, I was trying to get Will out,” the police chief said, shaking his head, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm.

Hannibal sketched a moment longer, and handed Will the finished product. “Is that somewhat close?” Winston laid beside Will, and licked the sweat off of his face.

Will blinked at the picture, nodding his head, it was pretty close. “The mouth, it’s huge, in the middle of the tulip like head… I can’t really explain it,” Will sighed, but the picture was as close as they would get unless they ran into the creature itself.

Hannibal took the paper pad back, and erased the face, then re-sketched it to make the entire face split into four even pieces. “Is this better?”

Will stared at the drawing, recalling a vivid flashback of Baltimore and the night he had been shot. He’d seen this before. “Yeah,” Will sighed, nodding his head slowly. He pushed the covers off  hastily and crawled out of the bed, still in his uniform, which was now sticking to him with sweat. He got a glass of water and guzzled it down, and then another.

Hannibal watched Will take a newly polished glass from the cupboard, and drink water from it. “Perhaps we should ask Joyce if the thing that attempted to break through her wall could have been a very tall being…”

“If she saw it at all,” Will said, taking a deep breath and leaning back against the counter, drinking a third glass slowly.

“If she saw it at all,” Hannibal agreed, and watched Will closely. “Stranger things have happened.”

“Monsters and… other worlds? I dunno,” Will all but chuckled, disbelief evident in his tone, but he had the dreams -- the visions -- to back it all up. He set the glass down, rubbing hands over his scruffy face. “We… if that  _ thing _ took Will, we have to figure out how. You mentioned a portal, an opening?”

“If there is an unlikely opening from this world to another, it would be an anomaly in an electro-magnetic sense.” Hannibal mused as he looked out of the window at the woods.

“How much you want to bet Will’s friends know something,” The police chief said, quietly, starting to get those little jumps he used to when he solved crimes and murders, easily making associations. “Late to school, headed the wrong way….Something isn’t adding up.”

“I would trust my instinct, if I were you,” Hannibal said, as he admired Will, yet again.

Will started to undo the buttons of his uniform shirt, clearly distracted as his mind started go miles a minute, finally catching up to himself, finally back in the mode he’d left it when he first arrived in Hawkins. “I should go find them, ask questions. They know something…” The little girl was still haunting him every time he closed his eyes. Something about her...

“Children are often sharper and more observant than those around them give them credit for,” Hannibal said, with a distracted air as he watched Will undo his shirt, and swallowed as a sliver of Will’s chest was revealed a button at a time.

Will tossed the shirt off toward the hamper in the corner, and opened a small closet near the bathroom to pull out a new one. He slipped it on over his shoulders but left it undone as he looked for new pants. “True. Easily getting into trouble too. I don’t want them finding this…  _ thing _ on their own.”

“Agreed,” Hannibal murmured as he felt his mind lose focus around Will’s utterly distracting stripshow. He watched with his own shapely lips barely parted, and licked them as he watched Will rummage for a new pair of pants. “Have you ever seen Michelangelo's David?” Hannibal asked, as he looked at the line of Will’s exposed chest through his open shirt.

Will raised his brows slightly and looked over at Hannibal as he finally found the pants he needed. “In person? No. Never had the chance to. Why?”

Hannibal flashed a charming smile at Will, “You bear a remarkable resemblance.”

A wry laugh left Will’s chest as he shook his head. He slipped out of his pants and pulled the other on, tossing those it the hamper too. “Are you flirting with me?”

Hannibal hesitated for a moment, and his high cheekbones flushed gently before he met Will’s eyes. “I would think myself a blind, cowardly fool if I did not,” he admitted, able to feel a flutter in his chest at the admission. He hadn’t felt that sort of delightful nervousness since he was very, very young.

There were clearly more reasons why Will didn’t have children of his own as he offered Hannibal a sly smile, doing up his pants, and then slowly his shirt, but he left a few of the buttons undone. “Just so I know what page we’re on.”

“Provided you are not uncomfortable with the subject material, I will probably continue to linger on our shared page, as often as possible,” Hannibal said, and poured Will some fresh coffee that he made while Will slept, into Will’s now very clean beat-up old thermos, and presented it to him.

Will couldn’t remember the last time he validated someone flirting with him, much less wanted it, and returned it. He took the thermos and let their fingers touch, lingering a moment before offering Hannibal another smile. “Not uncomfortable.”

An unfamiliar expression shone through Hannibal’s eyes as he looked at Will with what could only be called smitten fondness, then curled one finger around one of Will’s for an instant. “I could not be more relieved,” he admitted. “Would you allow me to cook dinner for you, sometime when your schedule permits?”

For a moment, the world stood still, and every ounce of darkness that had seeped into Will’s world seemed to dissipate for that split second, and then remembered Hannibal wasn’t staying, he wasn’t moving here. “Yeah,” Will said, gripping the thermos tightly and taking it, and then grabbed his holster and gun.

Hannibal let Will’s finger go, able to feel the shift in mood as Will took the thermos and seemed to slip into his ‘work’ mode. “Your truck, or my car?”

“You really hate my truck don’t you?” Will asked, throwing a smile over at Hannibal as he grabbed his coat, and gave the dogs pets, and then opened the door.

Hannibal let the dogs smell his hand as they passed, and pulled out his keys, then tossed them to Will, playfully. “Quid pro quo, Police Chief Graham.”

Will wasn’t sure why, but when Hannibal called him that it made a fire start deep in his core, especially now that he wasn’t just imagining the flirting they’d been doing since they met. He caught the keys and got in, looking at all the fancy buttons and the cassette deck, something most around here didn’t have in their cars. He started the engine. “You’ve got more buttons than I know what to do with.”

"I get the distinct feeling that you will be pressing all of them with alacrity in no time at all,” Hannibal teased as he sat in the passenger seat, admiring Will in the sleek interior of his car.

“They’re a little complicated,” Will said, and managed to find the windshield wipers to wipe some of the sprinkles of rain that had started in. “I think I’ll manage.” Hannibal’s car was like the man himself, complicated, with a lot of layers, but Will was sure he was seeing behind some very unusual veils.

“You may even enjoy yourself,” Hannibal smiled, and watched Will become accustomed to the fine vehicle, and leather seat that cradled him.

Flicking the headlights on as the rain started to pelt down, Will rolled his eyes at Hannibal and then backed out of the drive of his place, and into the streets, carefully. Wet was dangerous on these roads, especially if they had a monster loose. He drove them first down toward Steve Harrington’s place where Nancy said she had last seen Barb and her car. There was nothing and no one there, so they reversed in the drive and made their way to the Wheeler’s, to see about talking to Mike, and maybe Nancy again, check in and see if Barb hadn’t shown up.

Will pulled into the drive of one of the nicer houses in town, nothing like Joyce’s, and turned the car off, making sure to get all the gadgets off too. He opened the door and Mrs. Wheeler was at the front door already, having seen them drive up.

“Chief Graham, is that you?” she asked, not recognizing him without the rumbly truck. “Oh, you have a sidekick with you. Barb mentioned something about that.”

Hannibal blinked at the suburban woman, and managed not to sneer at the thought of being a ‘sidekick’, then offered his hand to her, in a shake as Will introduced him. “Mrs. Wheeler, this is Doctor Lecter. He’s been brought in to talk to the family of Will Byers and his friends, too. We’re wondering if we can talk to Mike?” Will asked, cautiously.

“Oh, of course. A doctor?” she looked Hannibal over and as they approached, took Hannibal’s hand, and shook it. “I’m Karen.”

“Lovely to meet you, Karen,” Hannibal said, politely, and released her hand.

She smiled and let them into the house. “Mike’s in the basement with his friends, just knock first.” Karen shut the door and went back to making dinner and tending to her youngest daughter.

Will raised his brow and knocked on the basement door first, waiting, hearing shuffling, and voices and then Mike call out; “What? We’re doing homework!”

Over his shoulder, Will gave Hannibal a look. “It’s Chief Graham, I’m wondering if we could talk.” More shuffling and more hushed voices. Will opened the door, not waiting any longer, and descended the steps.

Hannibal followed, curiously, his senses at their peak as he listened to what he was certain was the sound of children concealing a secret as hastily as possible.

Three boys stood at the bottom of the steps, hands behind their backs, moving in unison with uneasy smiles on their faces as Will and Hannibal approached them, reaching the last step. Will bit his lip as he looked them over, and then behind them at the fort made of chairs and blankets. “Surprised you boys aren’t out looking for Will.”

“You told us not to!” Dustin stammered out with his lisp, “Sir,” he amended.

Hannibal was looking at the fort of blankets and chairs in the corner with a keen eye, sure he heard breathing from behind the blankets, then looked at three compasses that sat out on a board game. “Planning an adventure?”

"Uh….” Lucas said, looking at Mike and then Dustin, and back at the board.

Will felt something strange in the room, or  _ someone _ was a more apt description, and he slid past the boys, sure Hannibal would get it out of them, and to the fort, feeling the fear start to radiate from under the cover of the opening. He lifted it, looking straight into  young face, a girl -- _ The Girl _ \-- complete with shaved head, down to a buzz cut.

“New friend, boys?” he called over his shoulder, but never took his eyes off her, letting them meet her own, an instant understanding was made, a connection. “I’m--”

“You’re Will, too,” she whispered, blinking up at him, but she knew he was not the Will they were looking for, but he was a lot like her.

Hannibal looked over at Will’s discovery, one of the compasses in hand as Mike went white, and hurried over to the girl, standing between her and Will. “She’s just visiting, she’s my cousin!” he said, desperately.   
  
“Does your mother know about your cousin being here?” Hannibal asked, as he walked over to the girl, and crouched down to look at her. “Hello,” he said, politely.

“You went through a lot of trouble to hide your cousin from us,” Will said, as Hannibal seemed to be checking the girl over, making sure she was alright. “You three haven’t seen anything strange have you? Heard noises?”

"Noises?” Dustin asked, brows raised under his hat, shaking his head. “No, no noises.”

“What … kinda noises?” Mike asked, reluctantly letting Will and Hannibal check El over, once he saw that El wasn’t afraid of Will, for some reason. 

“Mrs. Byers has been claiming she’s seeing things, the lights are flickering, she heard Will on the phone, trying to reach her. His music turns on by itself. She thinks Will is trying to reach her. You three haven’t been trying to reach him, too, have you?” the police chief asked, quirking a brow toward the boys, El at his feet now as she stood, slowly, standing next to him and Hannibal, as if perhaps she belonged there.

Mike shifted his eyes to the side, at the ham radios for a second, then back at El. “No, I mean, how would we?” he asked, cautiously.

Lucas stepped forward, arms folded over his chest. “How would you explain  _ her _ hearing him?” he asked guardedly, and Hannibal smiled a little at the boy, then stood.   
  
“Many physicists believe this is not the only universe. It is, no matter how remotely, possible that there may be a breach between our world and another. Of course, that would require a fantastic amount of power to create…”

“We believe that your friend was taken to parallel universe, like this one, but darker…” Will explained, and El touched his hand, and he looked down at her.

“Upside-down,” she said, simply, nodding her head.

“Yeah. Exactly. Opposite of us. Upside-down,” Will agreed, taking the girl’s hand as she seemed comfortable with him,  _ like _ him,  _ him _ like her. Touching El’s hand was like unlocking something deep rooted inside Will, a pressure released, and he couldn’t quite explain it. It came with a sudden images that flashed all at once and left him a little dizzy, but El grounded him with her hand clutched in his own.

Hannibal watched them both with soft eyes, and gestured to the compasses on the table. “It seems the idea of searching for a magnetic anomaly was something for which you were already prepared,” he said. 

“Alright, maybe we thought of it first,” Lucas said, defiantly, arms still crossed. “So? Will’s our friend, we heard him through the radio, and we haven’t given up on him. Is that a crime?”    
  
Hannibal looked impressed at the boy’s defiance, and shook his head. “Certainly not, however, it might be best if we worked together in this circumstance. If young Will can be endangered, any of you can.”

“There’s already report of another girl missing,” Will explained, not letting go of El’s hand, he looked down at her. “You go by Eleven?” he asked, well aware he need not ask her name, just confirm, the idea of her name firmly planted in his mind, along with other images that disturbed him about her past.

She nodded. 

“You know how to get us to the portal?” he asked her.

Hannibal watched, fascinated, as Will spoke with the young girl. They seemed to have a bond immediately, almost the way Will’s dogs behaved around him, with complete trust and certainty that Will was on their side, always.

“She probably does, we were going to follow our compasses,” Dustin lisped, showing one to Will. “The other night my compass stopped working in the woods, like true North was moving around. It was crazy.”

Mike stepped forward, watching Will with El. “How did you know her name? I mean her full name? We didn’t say it.”

“Special,” El said, and Will shook his head, but didn’t deny that. He’d always been different, but not like this little girl, at least he… he didn’t think so.

“Just knew,”  Will said, and looked the compasses, and then El again, kneeling down to her level. “Do you know how to get to the portal?”

She stared at him, blinking, and shook her head.

Hannibal looked at the girl’s shorn hair, and marks on her skin from repeated needles, in all the right places for sample after sample. “Eleven, were you in a hospital before you came here?” he asked, softly.

_ Hospital _ … Will thought, and remembered the torn gown piece he’d found. “She was. You were in a gown weren’t you?” Will asked as she looked up at him again and nodded her small head. His mind was making the leaps he was known for and had not used in years for this sort of business. “The lab… We should go there, check it out, maybe we can find something about the portal. Something Hopper and I missed, didn’t get to….” The remark was to Hannibal, not El and the boys.

“I trust your intuition completely,” Hannibal agreed, and the boys crowded around El as Mike swallowed, hard. 

“You’re not taking her away, are you? She doesn’t want to go back there.”

“She can stay here, but keep her safe,” Will said, letting go of El’s hand, and she smiled up at him and went to Mike’s side anyway. “We’ll be back.”

Will nodded at Hannibal and headed up the steps, one glance over at El, and then he disappeared up the steps again.

Hannibal followed as he left the three boys standing in a tight circle around El, and spoke again once they were back in his car, Will behind the wheel again. “You and the girl behaved as though you had known one another all your lives. It was nearly like watching siblings interact.”

“I can’t explain it,” Will said, pulling out of the drive, heading toward the Hawkins Laboratory. He glanced over at Hannibal, it was nightfall now, and rain slicked the streets. “She can do a lot more than I can, but we’re definitely…  _ connected _ .”

“Did you read her mind? What did you see?” Hannibal asked, with fascination as rain pelted the windshield and the wipers beat a steady rhythm, like a metronome.

“I didn’t read it as much as I saw and felt it. Like nothing else before,” Will explained, headlights lighting their path as they drove, no street lights out this way. “She’s been experimented on. Terribly. She’s able to move things with her mind, reach out to people. She could hear the Byers’ boy that way and harness him into the ham radio.”

“What is the nature of the laboratory to which we are headed?” Hannibal asked, quite relaxed for what they were on the verge of discovering. His eyes sparkled with amusement, the world was a beautiful, dark, fascinating place.

“I don’t know exactly. From what Eleven showed me, nothing good.” Will shifted his jaw. Maybe they should do some research first, but going in head first would be easier, for him, at least. He’d get a better read that way.

“And what did she show you?” Hannibal asked as he admired the way Will’s sharp jaw shifted in the dim light of the rainy evening.

“Isolation tanks, you know for sensory?” Will said, not sure if Hannibal knew, but that was a stupid question, of course he did, given his field. “They tried to isolate her so she could use her gifts to help them. She found the monster that way, somehow.”

“What, precisely are her gifts?” Hannibal asked, quite aware that Will and El had exchanged information, but whether that was El’s abilities, or Will’s that was difficult to say.

“I want to say Psychokinetics,” Will said, testing out the word, sure that was the one he wanted. He glanced over at Hannibal, wondering if the doctor knew what sort of trouble they were getting themselves into.

“Psychokinetics have never been observed in a controlled laboratory setting,” Hannibal murmured, and then looked at the road ahead. “Or, if they have, the phenomenon has not been released to the scientific community.”

“I guess we’ll find out when we get some real answers,” Will said. Though he hadn’t seen Eleven do much, he believed in everything she showed him, an innocent life such as her own couldn’t know such abuse without experiencing it.

“Do we have a plan?” Hannibal asked, casually, as though he was utterly at ease whether or not Will had any idea what they would do when they reached the lab.

“It’s dark. Probably not the best time to go, but we can… sneak in,” Will suggested, offhandedly. “They won’t hear me coming in this car.”

“You don’t imagine they will have cameras? Surveillance?” Hannibal asked.

“More than likely.” Will sighed, the closer they got the harder it was to concentrate. “We haven't a lot of choices. They'll know we are there one way or another.”

“Very well,” Hannibal said, undaunted, and even smiled a little at the prospect of storming the laboratory with Will at his side.

Not Will's first rodeo, and definitely not the first breaking and entering he'd have done.  In many ways, Will had the mind of a criminal. Be smirked over at Hannibal. “Not afraid for your career?”

Hannibal chuckled aloud, and then smiled at Will. “I’m with a Police Chief. What could possibly go wrong?”

“This lab is government run. This is well above me,” Will said, parking just outside the gates, taking in every light and camera he could see.

Hannibal’s eyes seemed to take on the darkness of the woods around them, and glinted with what little, growing moonlight began to shine in the sky as the sun went down. “I shall do my very best to keep up.”

Will wasn’t worried about keeping up, but rather not getting caught, and if they got caught, not dying. Hannibal looked fit enough, and there was something dangerous under his veil that had Will not even seconding guessing what the man was capable of. He turned the car off and handed the keys to Hannibal, getting out. He made sure he had his holster on, and in the back of his belt, his favorite knife.

Hannibal pocketed his keys after locking the car, and walked closer to Will and followed him toward the fence, and looked up at a tree that had thick branches that sprawled over the boundary. “Shall we?”

As wet as it was out, it was the only way up and over. Will gave a nod, and then started to scale the tree expertly. Despite how low key his job usually was, Will didn’t let that get in the way of keeping in shape. He crawled and scooted across the thick branch, looking back to see sure Hannibal was following.

Hannibal followed with the grace of a panther, right behind Will, with a subtle smile of his face. He was obviously even more athletic under his suit than his outline suggested, and dropped to the ground, soundlessly, the waited for Will to follow, who dropped down soundlessly behind him. No lights went off, no alarms sounded.

Yet.

Will stayed close to the fence without touching it, gun drawn as they crept their way along the exterior until they had a break in lights and hopefully camera, and Will dashed for the door, sticking behind it. To their left was a search light and camera trained near the spot. Will kicked a stray rock toward the light, enough movement to shine the light brighter and bring a bustle of guards to the door, guns drawn, to see what it was. Will nodded Hannibal toward the door as it opened, guards distracted, and they both slipped inside, without being noticed. The door shut, locking the guards out, and them inside. Lights flashed around them, a silent alarm going, and Will rushed down the hall, hoping they would find  _ something _ .

Hannibal smiled as they ran down the hall, Will able to keep up with his long-legged stride as they rounded a corner. “This way,”Will suggested to Hannibal, headed left down a brightly lit corridor, something telling him this was the route they needed to take.

Rounding the corner, Will looked first and then crept along the next corridor until they came across a hallway with plastic tarp zipped up and blocking it off, as if contaminated. Will turned to look over his shoulder with a shrug, and unzipped it, sliding through. Hannibal followed, until they came to a door which was locked. A quick look to his right, and there was a keycard slot just beside the door.

“Dammit,” Will whispered, just as two clicks of guns sounded behind them.

“Who are you?” said the armed man in a suit right behind them, his gun, and the gun of a guard leveled at them.

“Chief of Police Will Graham, this is Doctor Hannibal Lecter,” Will said, a shifted look at Hannibal, his hands raised, but, before the man could get on his walkie, Will punched the one in the lab-coat in the face.

Hannibal grinned at Will’s courage, and crouched, to charge the other guard into the wall, hard enough to knock his head against the paneling behind him and stun him. Hannibal spun on his heel to strike the guard across the face with his elbow, an almost balletically graceful move that made his jacket flare behind him, and the guard fell unconscious, slumped to the floor with a bloody nose. Hannibal kicked his gun away, then tossed it into a nearby garbage receptacle with his pocket-square,, and looked at Will, smirking. “Nicely done.

Will grabbed the security key card from the guard’s jacket, and slid it through the slot by the door, opening it up into another hallway, which was much, much darker, leaving Will with the creeping feeling that they were closer to the portal than they might have ever thought. Hannibal stepped through, and let the doors seal shut behind them with a hiss and a clank. He turned to examine the thick darkness in front of them, his heart beating faster, and held out one hand to catch what looked like snow, but did not melt in his hand. It was ash.

“How strange,” Hannibal murmured. The air was charged, different and dark in here. “It smells of sulphur, the atmosphere is certainly heavier, very possibly composed of less oxygen…” Hannibal laid one hand against the small of Will’s back.

“And decay.” Will felt lightheaded, that much was true. It was colder here, much like his dreams. He walked in a little further, gun still drawn, carefully stepping into another room, like something was drawing him in.

Hannibal followed, and pulled a flashlight off of Will’s hip, from his belt, then turned it on, and handed it to him. “This may help,” he murmured, as he looked around, utterly fascinated, and took a slow, deep breath, able to smell scents that simply did not exist in any other place on their Earth.

Fluorescent flood lights on either side of the long room flickered, struggling to remain operational. “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,” Hannibal whispered, quoting Dante as they neared what he began to think may very well be Hell itself.

Will chuckled; it was fitting but not a bit funny, but yet he couldn’t help it as it reverberated right out of his chest. “We could die,” he said, shining the light into the room as they entered, on a large gooey, slimey looking object. Well, if object was even the right word. “What the hell…”

Hannibal’s expensive shoes found the altered topography at the same time, and he looked down, fascinated. “I … think it may be alive,” he whispered to Will, and took another step, a soft smile on his face that was utterly inappropriate for their situation. “Should we die, I would consider it a very good death. This is the most fascinating discovery I have ever made” the doctor said, and looked at Will, at his eyes. “Well, perhaps the  _ second _ most fascinating.”

Will stepped in close to the thing, feeling it breathe and live, the flashlight in his mouth as he put his hand up to the creature, sticking it inside the slimey and wet walls, that stick to  his hand as he pushed in, feeling like it was trying to  _ pull  _ him in.

The … whatever it was, Hannibal had no word to describe it, in any of his seven languages, had spread it’s ephemerous form across what looked like a corner of the room. The moving, glistening darkness built itself up like a tree trunk, and in it’s hollow glowed a dull red light that shone through pale, sinewy filaments. The light beat like an irregular heart, and the air was thicker here than anywhere else, as was the stench of decay. “Will…” Hannibal cautioned, one hand on Will’s arm, as though to keep him back.

Will turned his head to look back at Hannibal just as two men in hazmat suits entered, whacking the doctor over the head. As Will tried to move to stop them, but felt a prick to his neck, and his whole world went dark as he fell into it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Not beta'd. Nor is it edited except by us.  
> 2) This is where El's powers and Will abilities collide, and make what the tags are talking about. Our little spin on things, mostly the same though. I guess.. think Jedi?

Opening his eyes slowly, Will groaned, turning over in his bed, comfortable there, long legs spread out as he grasped his pillow, burying his face in it, only to realize a second later it was not his pillow at all. His eyes opened the rest of the way, blurry with sleep, and Will was looking straight into the chest of another man, dusted with chest hair. He gasped a little, holding his hand over his mouth, and  rolled away, realizing before his gaze met Hannibal’s face, who was there with him. He swore under his breath, and and scooted out of bed, grabbing for clothes on the floor, left and littered there, making it look as though they had had…. Sex.

Oh God, and there were bottles of empty alcohol laying around, too. He slid into his boxers, taking a deep breath, wracking his brain. This was not how last night went down. This was  _ wrong _ . They had been at the Hawkins Laboratory, they  _ found _ the portal.

Hannibal stretched in bed, and Will’s sheets dipped low on his hips as he did so. He hummed and rolled onto his back, bathed in sunlight as it poured through Will’s cheap, thin curtains. His toned chest lifted and sank slowly with a heavy breath as Hannibal’s eyelids fluttered, and he woke slowly, confused.

Will said nothing as he started to tear the place apart. Light fixtures, paintings, electrical sockets, the phone, everything was going to get torn apart as he searched for the bugging devices he was sure they had left in here. Why else go through all this trouble. “I went there once with Hopper to talk to them about Will Byers and they dismissed me. Showed me false footage of that night. It was raining that night and there was no rain on the footage.” He didn’t care if they heard that part, he was on to them.

Hannibal sat up in bed, slowly, his head spinning as he watched Will tear his mobile home apart, then seemed to realize he was naked … in Will’s bed, and remembered nothing. Hannibal wound the thin sheet around his hips, and stood slowly before he began to help. He unscrewed the phone receiver, turned tables upside down, checked the fridge…

Will found one in the smoke alarm, and smashed it against the ground, looking over at Hannibal. “Your clothes are…” he gestured to the floor, where things had been thrown askew to make it look as though they had a fiery, drunken night of passion. Will knew it was a threat, as reputations could be destroyed here, easily.

“Thank you,” Hannibal said, softly, and began to dress slowly, more for Will’s comfort than his own. “I’m certain they’ve been to my house, as well.”

Sure he’d gotten them all, Will’s gaze lingered on Hannibal’s naked legs, trailing up, and then looked away. “Probably should go check there. I’m certain they got Joyce’s place too.”

Hannibal was standing in his briefs now as he brushed dog hair off of his shirt, and pulled it on slowly, over sore shoulders. “It will take two of us, with Joyce’s extensive collection of lights,” he sighed, beginning to button the shirt, a little disappointed Will was so hasty to have them dress.

Will had a mindset right now, and it wasn’t one made for pleasure, as he worried about everyone involved. He didn’t know how much the lab was involved with the other world, the upside-down as the kids called it, but he had a feeling some of this was the lab’s fault and they were trying to cover their tracks, Will Byers included. “Yeah, it will, but it’s for the best.”

Hannibal did up his pants, and fastened his belt, then went to the mirror in the tiny bathroom to fix his hair, and came out looking much as he had before they’d climbed the tree. “Do you feel able to drive? How is your head?”

“They socked you in head, and injected me in the neck with something,” Will said, his head didn’t throb. “Do you remember what we saw?” Will found his pants tugged them on, roaming around through the mess they made to find his shirt.

“Quite clearly, yes,” Hannibal said, as he watched Will dress for a moment, and then began to fix the mess they’d made while searching for the bug. “Clearly enough to draw it, in detail. I have never seen anything quite like it. You seemed about to climb through.”

“It was sucking me in,” Will said, doing up his shirt, leaving his hair in the shambles it usually was, and put his holster back on. He touched Hannibal’s arm. “I think we got them all.”

Hannibal looked over at Will with a little smile at the touch, and let himself fix Will’s hair without touching his skin, then righted the table Will had over-turned. “I’m aware. I was cleaning ... that’s what one calls it when one organizes and sanitizes a room,” Hannibal smirked, obviously joking with Will.

Two men together was hardly looked well upon, especially in smaller towns like Hawkins,  but it didn’t mean it fixed the way Will felt or thought. He found himself smiling at the joke, and rolling his eyes, “You’re welcome to clean the whole place if you want while I go debug your house and turn it upside down too.”

“I would leap at the offer, if I was not reluctant to allow you travel anywhere alone at the moment,” Hannibal admitted as he righted the kitchen chairs around the small table, and leaned over to make the bed they had unintentionally shared for a night. Hannibal had slept well, as always, it was a shame he had no memory of it.

It was a shame nothing came of it, or had come of it, but Will wasn’t going to think about that right now as he watched Hannibal fix his covers on the bed, the sunlight catching his almost honey colored hair. “Maybe next time we plan a sleepover instead of letting someone else do it,” he teased.  
Hannibal looked back at Will as he put the only two pillows Will had on the bed, neatly. He straightened, and walked closer to him, keeping their eyes locked. “Are you asking me out on a date, Police Chief Graham?” Hannibal asked, as he looked Will’s shaggy, but delicate features over, then touched Will’s hand, able to see his knuckles were bruised.

Will flushed a little, curling his swollen fingers around Hannibal’s hand, gently. “Maybe. Only if you say yes, otherwise, no.”

“Yes,” Hannibal agreed, and brushed his thumb over Will’s swollen knuckles as he stared at him. “Let me get some ice for your hand…”

“Past needing ice,” Will said, gazing at Hannibal openly now, though his flush remained, brightening his eyes as it darkened his cheeks.

Hannibal brushed some of Will’s curls from his forehead, and felt his own heart begin to pound as his fingers smoothed over and over Will’s knuckles. “You were quite impressive, by the way, at the laboratory.”

“Just doing my job, for once,” Will said quietly, heart swelling in his chest when Hannibal touched him like that, eyes meeting and he never looked away, not once.

“If I could have, I would have been quite happy to watch you dispatch all of them,” Hannibal smiled, and let his hand linger against the side of Will’s face.

Will tried not to think about waking with his face smushed into Hannibal’s chest as the other man’s hand grazed his cheek, swallowing the thought down thickly. “Given what we’re up against, I’m sure you’ll get the chance.”

Hannibal’s eyes shone, and he leaned in closer to brush his lips against Will’s cheek as his heart hammered in his chest. No one had ever made Hannibal’s pulse race with so little. A mere touch of their skin was enough to make him feel as though he had run for miles. “I look forward to it. Shall we check in on Joyce?”

“Yeah, let me get my boots,” Will found himself whispering, since Hannibal was so close, he could feel the doctor’s breath on his cheek, their electric pull to one another was almost too much. Will turned his head just enough so that their lips met, barely.

Hannibal’s breath caught in his throat, and he palmed Will’s cheek, then stepped in closer to seal the brush of their lips with a slow, deliberate, warm kiss that was just as profound as finding a portal to another world. 

Will rested his hand on Hannibal’s chest, feeling his heart race under his palm as their lips met simply, nothing rushed. He hummed, their connection growing by the second, the charge flowing through Will was more electric than anything he’d ever felt in his life.

Hannibal curled his free arm around Will’s back, and tilted his head, ever so slightly until their lips locked softly, but with a perfection that took Hannibal’s breath away. His head spun even harder than it had when he’d opened his eyes this morning, and he curled the fingers of one hand in Will’s hair, trembling.

“Hannibal-” Will whispered against his mouth and then kissed him again, tasting slowly as it felt like they were floating for a moment, his arms curled around Hannibal’s shoulders, bringing them that much closer together.

For the second time today, but the first time that Hannibal could recall, they were in one another’s arms. The feeling of Will kissing him after whispering his name made Hannibal tingle all over and hair stand on end on his forearms as the simple touch sent Hannibal’s elegant, complicated engine of a brain into pleasure overdrive. 

Slowly, Hannibal brushed their tongues together, and shivered as he held Will closer for it.

This time a groan escaped Will’s throat, sliding his tongue against Hannibal’s, deliberately slow, seeking and touching, as if getting to know him with deft, wet sweeps. His mind felt on overdrive, reaching out to Hannibal, feeling him mentally and physically.

Hannibal, beneath his elegant surface, was dark, even blood-soaked, although the blood itself was … beautiful. Hannibal could feel the grip of Will’s intimate mind, like fingers lacing themselves between his own, and kissed him more deeply instead of pulling away.

Just as Will’s mind seemed drawn to the darkness that lurked beside the dimension they lived in, he was also drawn to Hannibal’s alluring darkness, of which he was  _ positive _ existed, only he’d yet to have seen it all. Their kiss became a little deeper, a bit more frantic as their breaths started to speed up in time with their hearts.

Will and Hannibal’s tongues twisted around each other, tasting one another, intimately. For the first time in his life, Hannibal was not certain he could  _ stop _ kissing someone. His hand against Will’s back curled in Will’s work shirt, wrinkling the fabric in his palm as their chests pressed together, tightly enough that their hearts seemed like two fists pounding against the same bone-and-flesh door, asking to be let in.

Will pulled back, only to breathe, panting breaths against Hannibal’s lips, gazing at him with darker, lust blown eyes, pressing his forehead against the doctor’s. He licked his own lips, tasting the other man there, and then dove in for another kiss, one palm smoothing down the front of his shirt, undoing just one button, and then another, enough that his calloused fingers could touch the warm thicket of hair on his chest.

“Will-” Hannibal whispered, in a shaking voice, and smiled when he felt Will’s fingers against his chest hair. Hannibal kissed Will again for it, with passion, a dark flush creeping up under his shirt collar as he sucked Will’s tongue this time.

Amidst the the impending darkness and trouble Will knew they were going to find, he couldn’t help but grasp on to all the perfection in front of him, fingers skimming over Hannibal’s nipples as another button slips undone, blood rushing straight down to his groin. He rolled his hips forward, into Hannibal’s.

Hannibal groaned, and did the same, his body answering Will’s heartbeat for heartbeat as they rolled against one another. He moaned at the touch to his nipples, and began to undo Will’s shirt, hand brushing down Will’s smooth, solid chest with every button as they gave up on making it out the door.

Will got all of Hannibal’s buttons off and undone, and pushed him toward the counter, trapping him there against it, rutting slowly together as they made out, in his already dirty again kitchen. “Wanted to touch since we woke up…”

“I was disappointed that you had moved away so quickly,” Hannibal whispered back, hotly, and leaned back against the counter with one hand gripping Will’s ass through his boxers after he undid and pushed down Will’s pants. 

“Didn’t want to give them a show,” Will murmured, stepping out of his pants, deft fingers working to remove Hannibal’s as quickly as he could, nipping kisses and slow sucks of tongue against his mouth.

Hannibal shifted out of his shirt and vest completely, shedding them to the floor. He stole quick, hot kisses from Will as he stripped Will’s gun holster and shirt off. Hannibal palmed Will’s ass and pulled him in closer for a deep kiss, hard enough that their teeth clicked.

Dizzy from lust, Will pushed Hannibal’s pants and underwear to the floor, and then kissed his way back up, biting a nipple on his way, and Hannibal’s jaw, his lips, unable to get enough. “God, you are amazing…”

Hannibal smiled against Will’s lips as he spoke, and kissed him as he thumbed the single button that held Will’s straining boxers closed, and opened them to draw Will’s cock out with one hand, stroking it slowly. “You are perfection itself,” Hannibal whispered, between heady kisses that started to travel down the side of Will’s neck.

Work mode was officially lost, and Will handed himself over to the capable Doctor, head canted off to the side, exposing his angular neck to the other man, his pulse throbbing in his neck. He grasped Hannibal around his hips, and then smoothed on hand down, grasping his cock slowly.

“What beautiful, rough hands,” Hannibal gasped, and bit at Will’s shoulder, then kissed it when Will squeezed his cock. He began to stroke Will harder and faster, rubbing his thumb over the slicked tip of Will’s head.

Will swore, feeling himself start to teeter over the edge, working Hannibal faster as they kept pace with each other. His mouth dropped open as a groan escaped between panted breaths. “Hannibal-”

Hannibal bit Will’s neck, low over his pulse, and sucked the spot before he kissed Will’s lips again, and moved closer so that their stroking hands brushed with every stroke. “I’ve wanted to touch you since the second I saw you,” Hannibal confessed as he palmed Will’s ass with his free hand, his body beginning to wind up tighter with every pass of Will’s calloused palm over him.

God, if they had more time, Will knew he’d lay the doctor out flat and worship him, but this would be enough, it  _ had _ to be enough, for now. Will kissed Hannibal heatedly, grasping them both in his one hand now, as the other hand Hannibal’s hip, working them both into a tightly wound ball, tense, his own toes splaying against the linoleum, up on the balls of his feet. “I… god,” Will couldn’t even get the words out, sputtering and moaning against Hannibal’s mouth.

“Will-” was all Hannibal managed to gasp out, and rested their faces together as he fucked Will’s palm, and the long, throbbing line of his cock. “Yes-” Hannibal clutched Will’s shoulder, and the curve of his ass and came in Will’s hand, then and there, unable to help himself with the way Will’s callouses were rubbing against him.

Will followed close behind, slathering their lengths with their come, panting and throbbing against each other. He kissed Hannibal softer this time, catching his breath, slowly winding down as his limbs went all but limp, every last bit of tension gone.

Hannibal leaned back against the kitchen counter, shaking and flushed as he held Will to him with their faces nuzzled together as they kissed. “Will…” Hannibal whispered. He kissed Will again, slowly, both of them trembling a little, sweating and sticky.

Hannibal had effectively burned down  Will's forts, barriers gone, and the police chief couldn't even be bothered to mind right now. He kissed Hannibal slowly, humming pleasantly into his mouth. Now that they had dealt with some of the tension, maybe they could focus.

“So much for a date.”

“No need to preclude a date, I’d still enjoy cooking dinner for you,” Hannibal whispered, between slow kisses, and wished they could go back to bed, now.

“When this whole thing is over,” Will said, quietly, kissing Hannibal’s lower lip, tasting it with his tongue, unable to get enough. “I promise.”

***

When they got to Joyce’s place a bit later, Jim Hopper from the next town over was there already, as Joyce had called him, they were friends for a while, Will knew that much. There was a large hole in Joyce’s wall now,  looking right into her living room as they walked up, able to see them both inside. Joyce opened the door, cigarette between her fingers, frazzled.

“I know you won’t believe me-” she started to say, but Will  held up a hand to stop her.

Hannibal held up a prepared sign that said:  _ Please don’t speak _ and pressed his finger to his lips, looking at both of them before he and Will began to search frantically through the clutter, and the lights in Joyce’s house. Hopper caught on and began to help, and finally, Hannibal pulled a bug out of one of the many, many lights, and showed the other three present before he crushed it with his heel.

“We believe you,” Will said, after they were certain that they were not being listened to. “Your son’s friends have been very busy the last few days, and we’ve figured a few things out. I think we know where Will is,” the police chief explained.

“It is, however, going to be very difficult to get to,” Hannibal warned them. “This may be difficult to believe, but we believe there has been an event that has created a portal from this dimension into the next. Many physicists have long theorized that we are living in what is but one of many possible universes, an infinite number of them. We have never had proof until now. Will and I investigated Hawkins Laboratories last night. We discovered what we think is a wound between the dimensions, and we believe your Will was pulled through a similar opening between the worlds. He is now trapped on the other side, which is why you can hear him, why he can communicate with you, but why there has been great difficulty.”

Joyce stared at them, and then Hopper, and then back at them again, mouth agape and wide eyed. She wanted to be surprised, but she honestly wasn’t, and relief took her over more than anything else. “We… we have to go get him!” She exclaimed, starting to get her coat, cigarette between her lips.

“It’s not that easy. The portal is in the laboratories, and after our break in last night, it’s not going to be easy to get in,” Will said.

“No, but… we’ll figure it out,” Hopper said, defensively. “Her son is in there, he could be dying, or-” He stopped himself when Joyce gave the other police offer a look. “Bottom line, we have to get in there.”

“After Will and I were removed from the lab, we woke at Will’s house. It was made to appear that we had over-indulged the night before, and dreamed it all, but I am certain of what we saw.” Hannibal began to sketch a map from memory of how they found the room with the portal.

“And we will get in there,” Will added.

“I’m going,” Joyce said, shaking her head. “We’ll use the map,  we’ll find Will.”

The police chief nodded. “We’ll all go. Hannibal and I can act as a distraction, a diversion, you two go find Will.”

“I’m certain we can manage to lead quite a few of the guards away from the laboratory, if we put our minds to it,” Hannibal smiled over at Will. A dark gleam shone in Hannibal’s eyes, it would have been unsettling to most people.

Will shifted his gaze to Hannibal, hand rested over his gun in it’s holster at his hip. “It’ll work.”

Hopper was gathering his hat. “Let’s go then. Longer we dilly dally around, the worse off Will could be.”

“Hopper’s right,” Joyce said, touching the other police officer’s shoulder as they all started to file out.

“Okay. Follow us, and whatever we do, don’t turn back,” Will said, turning on booted heel, and walking out again, hand on Hannibal’s shoulder as they walked back to the truck. Will got in and  started it up again. Once they were all settled, and Hopper was waiting in his own truck, Will backed out of the drive and headed back toward the lab.

“Knowing what I now know about what the laboratory is trying to hide, I am much less inclined to use restraint while creating a diversion,” Hannibal murmured, vaguely, but smiled at the thought, and looked over at Will.

“Not asking you to show restraint,” Will said, seriously, eyes on the road as he drove his hefty truck at  speeds faster than he should, but Hopper and Joyce were keeping up. “They’re harming children, and who knows who else, and trying to hide that… thing. They’re as bad as the monster.”

Hannibal watched Will as he drove, and smiled cryptically. “Sometimes, the only thing that can defeat a monster is another monster, or two, if we are very lucky,” he mused. “Tell me Will, have you ever felt monstrous?”

Will worked very hard to hide any part of himself that wasn’t savory to the public. He was capable, he knew he was, but it was the reason he froze up so often. Empathy had a way of working against him. “No,” he replied simply.

Hannibal looked at Will, as though he could see through him. “Why, precisely, were you moved to Hawkins, again, Will?” Hannibal asked, shrewdly.

“I was offered a post here after a near death injury on the job,” Will answered, factually. He glanced over at Hannibal, and then the rearview to be sure the other two were close behind.

“Did that near death injury occur when you failed to kill a suspect?” Hannibal guessed as Will drove, and watched stark autumn forest race past Will’s profile.

Will set his jaw, looking out in front of them, his gaze seeming to gloss over a bit at the thought. “Yes.”

“Does the thought of killing horrify you?” Hannibal asked softly, almost tenderly as he touched Will’s arm.

Will shivered for a second, brought out of his memory, and looked at Hannibal briefly as they approached the lab. “No. It…” He took a deep breath. “I...I’m afraid it won’t.”

“What if no longer restraining yourself was the just and righteous thing to do? You advised me that these people are actively aiding in keeping a terrified boy away from his frantic mother. Perhaps what you fear is that there are men so evil that killing them will feel  _ good _ ?”

“Justice is good. Justice doesn’t come to people like them, only death,” Will said, knowingly, having already come to terms with the fact that he would have to become a monster greater than they were if he expected to save the Byers boy.

“Are there not some cases in which the only justice that could be given is death?” Hannibal asked, philosophically, very mindful of the gun in Will’s holster.

“In the old days, sure,” Will said, teeth gritted now, the gates were coming up and Will had no plans of stopping. “Hold on.” Hannibal nodded once, and remained quite still in his seat as Will burst through the gates with the truck. Making sure they were both buckled in, Will sped up, quickly, pressing his foot into the gas pedal, and the truck all but flew through the gate, knocking down the fence with it. It made a spectacular crashing sound, and set off red lights and alarms in the yard as the bent and mangled fence fell to the side.

He slammed the breaks on once inside far enough, Hopper and Joyce behind them, everyone piling out of their vehicles.

 “A very good start,” Hannibal smiled as the guards began to jog out of the building, toward the truck, all but ignoring Joyce and Hopper.

Will knew the other two would follow close behind. They had the map Hannibal made for them, and all Will and Hannibal needed to worry about was getting them into the compound to find Joyce’s boy.  Alarms were blaring, loudly, and Will had his gun, a few extra rounds and  knife. It wasn’t much, but he had a feeling they wouldn’t need much. Guards started to pour out of the building.

A bullet narrowly missed Hannibal’s head as a guard squeezed off a shot at the man still in the truck. Hannibal ducked, and kicked his door open hard enough to send the gunman flying. He pounced on him, took the gun, and ducked behind the truck as more bullets came their way.

Will used his door to block a few shots, already losing track of Joyce and Hopper as they disappeared inside, unnoticed with the two of them still out here. Will stood and fired off a round at one guard close, dropping him. Another came up behind him, Will kicked him off, and punched him, leveling him.

Hannibal borrowed the knife from Will’s pocket as he slid his hand against Will’s body, a sensual, intimate touch for a frantic and bloody scene. He pulled the knife out, and like a lion, seemed to sense where the weakest part of the group of guards were, then rushed at them with alarming speed and agility, zig-zagging to confound their aim.    
  
The guns went silent, and three bodies bleeding from their throats surrounded Hannibal, spray from their arteries drenching his fine suit. “Use the truck on the largest group!” he shouted over to Will as he disarmed another guard by dislocating his shoulder, then spun him so that the guard’s head smashed against the side of the truck. Hannibal twisted his neck, sharply, and bones disconnected from one another neatly, with the sound of a crushed styrofoam cup.

Will was half in and half out of the truck, and pressed down on the pedal, sending it barrelling into the largest group of guards, running them over and keeping them down under the metal beast. Will pulled his keys out and dropped down out of the truck,  shooting a guard that came up behind Hannibal.

“There’ll be more.”

“That is precisely what we want,” Hannibal said. He was sprayed with blood, his hands slick and red as he held Will’s knife. Sure enough, more guards poured out of the building, and charged after them. “Shall we lead them into the woods?” Hannibal asked as one shot at him from behind. A bullet grazed his shoulder, and Hannibal looked back at the shooter.    
  
Like a bear, being shot only seemed to enrage Hannibal, which unnerved the guard into fumbling his gun. Hannibal lunged, blade in hand, and drove it into the guard’s chest in front of Will, right into the man’s heart, which moved the blade as it pumped it’s last beats, then went still.

Will watched, frozen for a moment,  swarms of them were coming, and he started for the broken down gate, shooting, effectively, four more, taking them down, making sure Hannibal was at his side. He loaded his last rounds into the gun, but he knew he’d be unarmed soon enough.

Hannibal sliced another guard’s throat, and used his body as a shield against another attack as he rushed another swarm of the guards. Moments later, Hannibal was drenched in blood, and the guards were dead at his feet, oozing blood, guns useless in their dead hands.    
  
The unnerved guards began to radio for more backup, only the clumsy and inexperienced left now, those who never imagined they would have to actually do this sort of work, and Hannibal corralled them toward Will, who used his last few rounds, taking down four of the guards. There were a few left, Will punched one in the face and backed handed another with his gun before holstering it. The sirens were getting louder, and another wave of guards were coming out of the door, and Will hoped to whatever God there was that Joyce and Hopper had made it in.

The guards started to swarm them as they slowly worked their way back toward the opening of the compound, into the forest. Shots were being fired, and when Will realized how out number they were and how  _ close _ the guards had gotten, he panicked, frozen on the spot, staring them down. One by one, the guards started to bleed from their eyes, a few dropped to their knees, some choked to death. Those who didn’t relent, walked closer, and Will shot a one a look, and the man  _ exploded _ , flesh and blood covering Will, and puddling on the ground.

Hannibal’s blade hand lowered as he watched what was happening before his eyes. Will was killing them without a touch. The guard in front of them exploded, coating them both with blood and bits of bone, and Hannibal was certain he heard a symphony begin to play in his head as he witnessed what could only be described as a smiting from some divine creature inflicted on the unworthy.

The rest of the guards stopped, unsure if they should continue on or not, and from behind them a tall, graying man walked out, moving them out of the way. It was the man Will had seen in Eleven’s mind, the man that had done this to her, to many others.

The man raised his hands as he looked at Will, unconcerned with the other men falling in heaps around him, dead and bloodied. “Well, it seems we’ve under-estimated you, Chief. Did you have any idea you could do this?” he asked, gesturing to the carnage around them.

Will wiped his nose with his tan shirt, smearing blood along the sleeve as he seethed at the man, heaving breaths as his chest rose and fell quickly. “I’ve been an experiment this whole time…?”

“Well, we lost track of you for many years, Will. Your mother was a very promising test candidate, of course. She was exceptional. We had no idea she was going to have you, or we would have intercepted you before your talents could be wasted moving around the country with your father. It wasn’t until you started to take psychological testing for the Police Academy that we took note of you. Of course, you bear a strong resemblance to her. A simple DNA test on a hair from a brush was all it took, and now you’re here, in the sleepy town of Hawkins, Indiana. I was beginning to think you took after your father after all…”

From behind them the sounds of bicycle tires skidded on the ground to a stop, and Will didn’t even have to look behind him to know it was Mike, Lucas, Dustin, and Eleven, and right behind them, coming for everyone at the smell of blood, was the monster, lurking in the shadows, the lights busting in the compound and turning the place dark, as the sun had since set over the hills and out of view.

Screams were all that were heard near them, guards taken down, crunching of bones, and the pattering of feet as some ran. El screamed and Will launched in her direction, knocking the older graying man over who had grabbed her, and scooped her up into his own arms. El pushed the man back with her mind sending him into the wall, and knocked him out.

Hannibal turned to see the tall, inhuman thing staggering toward him. The monster’s face opened and became a gaping maw as it lumbered toward them, toward Hannibal, who was covered in blood. The boys began to shoot rocks at it, which seemed to offend the monster, more than anything, but pushed it back a little. 

Rocks were simply not enough.

The monster began to charge at them again, and Hannibal’s nostrils flared, he ran at the thing, blade in hand, and threw himself onto the monster’s back, strangling it as he buried the blade of his knife through the tough skin of the monster’s chest, which made it scream in outrage, but did not bring it down.

The monster thrashed and threw Hannibal off, on to the ground. Will and Eleven checked on him briefly, and stood over him protectively as the monster lumbered forward again. The boys tried one more time with their rocks, sling shotting their last one, but it merely landed in the monster’s petal face, making him roar. Will touched Eleven’s shoulder, she nodded, lifting one hand toward the monster, and Will followed her, as if she were instructing him, his hand raised, both concentrating hard, as the monster was pushed back, held down by the power of their minds alone.

“Will…” Hannibal whispered, in awe as he watched from where he was thrown by the monster, who was struggling under the twin forces of Will and El as they controlled and repelled him.

The boys had stopped, they were staring now, Mike trying to get closer to them, to see what was going on, to stop El, or see that she was okay. Will and El’s eyes were dark and stormy, bloodshot and dark red like blood was pouring into the whites, filling them slowly, bleeding from the inside out. Will wrapped a protective arm around El’s shoulders, the monster in front of them squirming and writhing in pain, starting to tear into a billion little particles. 

Light began to grow in the monster’s chest, spreading outward as the particles became thick and dark, swarming around Will and El as the monster disintegrated with a roar, and was gone.    
  
Hannibal uncovered his ears and hurried over on unsteady legs, even before the cloud of what the monster had been fell to the ground. “Will!”

“El!” Mike yelled, running up with Hannibal, but the two were gone, nothing but dust left of the three. “EL! Where is she?” El!” The other boys started to call out too, but there was nothing.

Hannibal looked around, stunned and heartbroken, and fell to his knees in the spot where Will had been, eyes closed.


	5. Chapter 5

Sunlight managed to find it’s way through a narrow gap between heavy curtains, and onto the bed to cast a sharp, bright beam of light over Will’s chest. Hannibal walked in, no longer covered in blood. He was neatly dressed and clean again, with a tray of breakfast in hand, and looked Will over where he lay in the stately four-posted bed, under thick blankets, then set the tray to the side for now as he took Will’s pulse at his wrist.    
  
Winston stirred on the floor, stretching, and looked up at Will, as though to check on his progress.

Will felt like he was waking from a long, long sleep of what felt like years, trapped in the darkness of his mind, holding to Eleven tightly until he wasn’t anymore. His eyes fluttered, dark lashes skimming the pale skin on his cheeks before they opened, the room filled with the scent of fresh bacon and eggs.

Hannibal exhaled a sigh of relief, and touched Will’s pale cheek with his hand. He smiled at Will, with slightly wet eyes, and leaned down to kiss his forehead, softly. “Good morning.”

“Hannibal?” Will breathed out slowly, blinking up at him, still not quite able to understand all that had happened. There was the monster, and he and El fighting it, and then nothing.

“Be careful, Will,” Hannibal cautioned, and helped Will sit up, slowly. “You are very weak, at the moment.”

“Where’s Eleven?” Will asked, quietly, sitting up slowly, but his limbs hardly wanted to move, hardly wanted to stay upright for that matter, feeling like jelly under his skin, like bones had not yet fully formed.

“She is down the hall, sleeping,” Hannibal assured Will. “You are both in much the same state. Do you think you can eat?” he asked Will, moving the tray closer to Will, onto his lap.

Food hardly seemed pleasant at the time, but Will felt his stomach roll, rumbling with hunger. “Yes,” he said, though his fingers didn’t work right when he went to move them around the fork. “How long?”

“How long have you been asleep?” Hannibal asked, as he smoothed Will’s soft curls back, out of his eyes.

Nodding, Will tried hard to grasp the fork on the tray, hands shaking as he concentrated. “Yeah. How long?”

“Nearly a week,” Hannibal said, softly, and reached over to take the fork for Will, offering him a bite of perfectly cooked egg.

There were a lot of questions left unanswered, but Will left them where they lie for now, and took the offered bit of egg into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed the tasty morsel. “The Monster? Will?”

“The Monster has not been seen or heard from again. Young Will is recovering in the hospital, but very happy to be home.” Hannibal offered Will a sip of coffee, next.

Will wrapped his hands around Hannibal’s as they held the mug together, his still feeling not quite strong enough to hold it. He sipped a few times. “That’s all that matters then.”

“How are you feeling?” Hannibal asked, and even blew on Will’s coffee to cool it for him before helping him sip more.

“Exhausted,” Will answered, dressed in snuggly pajamas, ones he knew he didn’t own, definitely not at his place.

“I don’t doubt it. What is the last thing you remember?” Hannibal asked, as he loaded the fork with another small bite of eggs and hollandaise sauce.

“Killing the monster…. And then nothing.” Will sighed, and took another bite. At the time it felt like his body was on fire, brain exploding.

"Nothing at all?” Hannibal asked, and took his time preparing the next bite, with some pancetta and a thin slice of apple, a little cheese.

“Am I supposed to remember?” Will wasn’t sure what happened between those times, but his head hurt to think about it. He looked over at Hannibal with his sea-blue gaze. “What happened?”

“After the beast was disintegrated, you disappeared,” Hannibal murmured, and looked down at Will’s plate, then back up at him, his eyes strangely fragile for a moment. “Both of you were quite simply no longer present. You left no body, no trace.” 

He swallowed hard, and stared at Will, then reached out with one hand to touch his cheek, as though to assure himself that Will was still there. 

“I took Winston and the others for a walk the next day, and much to my surprise, there you were. Both of you were lying on the bank of the river, unconscious. I had you both rushed to the local hospital, where I investigated your condition myself.” Hannibal’s lips made a thin, hard line at the memory, and he smiled. “You are both very weak, but in a peculiar state; your blood is full of immature cells. Usually, that would be very concerning, an indication of cancer … However, I think there is another explanation.”

Will rubbed a hand over his face as he listened, and then blinked over at Hannibal, eyes searching his, but there weren’t many answers he knew he could seek here. It was simply unexplained. “What is that?”

“Yourself, and El, have bodies that are only approximately a week old. The count of your immature cells are decreasing every day, you are returning to what is considered a normal range. I have no explanation beyond that you were re-formed, and returned to us, and for that, I am profoundly grateful. Your weakness is likely the side effect of muscles that are not yet accustomed to use.”

Will slowly tried to take the fork from Hannibal again, easier this time, and took the bite that was already presented on it. He nodded as he chewed and then swallowed. It sounded farfetched, but the whole thing had been, hadn’t it? The things science fiction and fantasy were made of, come true. Will sighed and looked at Hannibal again. “You missed me,” he whispered coyly.

Hannibal’s tawny eyelashes caught the light as they fluttered when he looked down at Will’s hand, and took it in his own. “Yes. I missed you very much,” he sighed, and looked back up at Will, fingers laced into Will’s. “If you require proof, your dogs were going to live with me. I was reconciling myself to being a dog owner,” he laughed.

Will set the fork down and laid his other hand over Hannibal’s, clutching his one between his own. “Were you going to take them back to Baltimore?”

“Yes,” Hannibal nodded, and looked at Buster, who decided his place to sleep was on a chaise lounge that Hannibal had covered with a cashmere blanket. “I knew you would never want them turned over to a shelter. I was going to become the best dog owner I could, in tribute to you.”

Will chuckled, and slid the tray to Hannibal to put aside, and once his lap and Hannibal hands were free, he  tugged the other man into bed with him, able to sense his  need to be close after all this time apart, no matter how present Will was in body.

Hannibal sighed, and climbed into bed with Will, quite happily. He knew he would feed Will more for a lunch, soon, anyhow. He slipped his arm under Will’s neck, and wrapped his other arm around Will’s chest, holding him close. “We have only known one another a short time, but I was utterly bereft when you vanished.”

“You were sure I was dead. Gone long before we could make a real  _ connection _ ,” Will whispered,  turning to curl up against Hannibal, they way he had wanted to that morning before the show down at the laboratory.

Hannibal sighed, and held Will to him with closed eyes as he brushed his long fingers down Will’s back, very aware now of just how deeply his feelings for the Police Chief ran. “I am very, very grateful that we have another chance to make that connection. I would have remembered you for the rest of my life.”

“Now you don’t have to remember me,” Will smiled, lazily, against Hannibal’s neck, looping his arm around him, under his arm to hook his fingers against his shoulder.

Hannibal smiled at Will, which made the corners of his dark eyes crinkle, and he leaned closer to give him a slow, gentle kiss on the lips, as he had longed to do since the moment Will disappeared. It had broken Hannibal’s heart to lose the fascinating, clever, and utterly unique man so soon.

Will wrapped his arm tighter around Hannibal, flushing them chest to chest, and kissed him back, slowly, brushing lips together, breathing together. “When do you go back to Baltimore?”

“I took another two weeks leave, but, given your state, I would like to move you and El to my residence in Baltimore for the rest of your recovery. If you require intervention, I would rather you were close to a major medical center,” Hannibal whispered as he held Will, gently.

“Away from here… away from  _ her _ friends?” Will asked, trying to contemplate leaving his life here behind for the noisy bustle of Baltimore again.

Hannibal frowned at the thought, and considered it. “If either of you had complications here, you would likely have only me for help,” he reasoned, trying to make certain that Will understood the risk.

“There’s a risk of that? Of complication? What kind?” Will asked, worried more for Eleven than himself, as she had so clearly attached herself Mike, Dustin, and Lucas.

“It is quite literally impossible to say. To my knowledge, no one has ever managed to regenerate after vanishing. I am simply doing what any responsible physician would. It could be that neither of you will have problems, but it is impossible to guarantee.”

Will knew, of course, he was in no place to argue. He could barely move on his own, and keeping his eyes open was difficult. He imagined with how small and fragile Eleven was, she would be in worse condition. “I trust you.”

Hannibal sighed, and stroked his hand over the side of Will’s face staring at him with what was rapidly growing into devotion. “I shall consider staying in Hawkins with both of you, but I must make a few phone calls to ensure I would have a plan in place if either of you were to encounter complications. Fair enough?”

“We won’t keep you from your work, just until we’re better, and then we’ll reevaluate?” Will offered, trying to be diplomatic, he doesn’t expect Hannibal to stay here forever, to uproot himself from a well earned life in Baltimore.

“I have already arranged for my patients to receive care from a trusted colleague of mine. A psychiatrist’s life is not quite as ruled by emergency as a trauma surgeon’s,” Hannibal pointed out, and kissed Will’s forehead, his heart beating a little harder at the smell of Will’s skin.

“I can hardly keep you here forever,” Will said, in the knowledge that at some point their little adventure here would come to halting stop unless one of them gave. Even after such a short time, it hardly felt right not to have Hannibal in his life.

“Let’s not dwell on the future now. You seem to have bested Lazarus at his own game,” Hannibal smiled. “I am only focused on your recovery. The future will write itself. Do not worry,” Hannibal whispered, and held Will to his shoulder.

There were a lot more questions to be answered, but Will could only feel the weight of sleep taking him again, exhausted though he’d been sleeping for over a week. “Okay,” he agreed, eyes fluttering closed again as his breathing evened out against Hannibal’s neck.

Soft music played from the other room, from El’s room, something soothing and delicate as the little girl slept. Buster stretched and yawned, then jumped up onto the bed, and pawed at Will to see him. “This one is very demanding,” Hannibal chuckled.

Will’s eyes fluttered and he reached his hand for Buster, who then came and curled up against his chest, between Will and Hannibal. “Very ferocious, and very cuddly,” Will murmured.

“Yes, I can see that,” Hannibal chuckled as Buster snuggled between them, his head against Will’s throat with a heavy sigh. “He was adamant that all three of them should be allowed to sleep with you the second I brought you in here. I had to admire his tenacity.”

“We’ve never been without each other for three years,” Will whispered, as the other two joined them on the bed, but stayed at the end, at Will’s feet. He sighed, contently. “Thank you for watching them.”

“I could not allow your family to suffer without you,” Hannibal whispered, adoringly, and kissed Will’s dry lips, very carefully. “Would you like some water, or ice?”

“Water,” Will whispered, though he hardly wanted to move from his spot, comfortable and warm in Hannibal’s arms and his dogs.

Hannibal nodded, and pulled himself away only a little, then reached to the bedside table where he had a pitcher of ice water with lemon slices and mint floating in it, and poured Will half a glass, then helped him sit up enough to sip by propping Will against his own shoulder. “There. Can you hold the glass?”

Will reached for the glass, hands shaking, but managed with both of them to bring it to his lips to drink, sighing. He drank the whole glass in a matter of moments, licking his parched lips. He leaned back into Hannibal’s arms, using him as stable support.

“More?” Hannibal offered, quite happy to support Will like this as he regained his strength.

The dogs all gathered at their feet and Will happily, contently, rested up against Hannibal, and shook his head. “I’m okay for now.”

“The more you can drink, the better,” Hannibal said, but set the glass aside for now with a stretch of his long arm, and kissed Will’s temple. “The FBI descended upon the lab, they have taken over the investigation and shut it down. All surveillance tapes were erased,” he reassured Will.

Will considered that a moment, what Hannibal was suggesting, and canted his chin up a little to look at him. “We’re given a free pass for the carnage we’ve done, but to what extent? What do  _ I _ owe them? El?”

“I’ve already spoken to Jack Crawford, the agent who came calling. I said that there would be no interviews until I was satisfied that you are strong enough. If you’d like, that can go on for a nearly infinite amount of time,” Hannibal said.

“They will only stay pleased for so long,” Will muttered, resting his head back against Hannibal’s shoulder. “He knows everything then?”

“He knows that you and Eleven are capable of highly unusual things. The boys were vague in their descriptions,” Hannibal said softly, and kissed Will’s hair. “I did not want your memory to become enshrined in tabloid speculation. You both deserved far better than that. Of course, the exploding gas tank of your damaged truck happened to destroy ninety percent of the evidence of our skirmish,” Hannibal said, carefully, and with a dark smile in his tone.

“You blew up my truck?” Will asked, blinking up at Hannibal by leaning back a little more. He looked a little amused more than irritated. “And the evidence taken from the facility?”

“They have evidence of where young Will was kept, they have witness testimony from the boys that you were able to defeat the monster with your mind. Aside from that ... everything is very, very vague.” Hannibal smiled a little.

“They went in the portal?” Will asked, wondering what the FBI, of all agencies, would do with something like that.

“I’m not privy to that information,” Hannibal said with another little smile, “but I did see men patrolling the area with exceptionally high quality haz-mat equipment. I would guess they are aware of it.”

“So it’s not closed off then.” That was worrisome,  and of course Will wanted to do something about that, but what could he honestly do?

“It’s not closed, no. I am not certain anyone is aware quite how to close these ports between our worlds, or what might come through it next,” Hannibal said, softly, but honestly, and rubbed Will’s shoulder for him. “That is, however, beyond either of us. Your recovery is the most important thing in this world to me, at the moment,” Hannibal said with a little smile, and looked down at Wednesday, the small and perpetually flatulent black pug, who rested her head on Hannibal’s leg with a heavy sigh, and started to snore.

“In other words, stop being stubborn Will,” the police chief said, with a sigh, but couldn’t help but smile and rub a toe against Wednesday.

“That would make your recovery infinitely smoother,” Hannibal chuckled, and stared at Wednesday as she snuggled his leg, completely asleep. “Does she suffer from some sort of serious breathing problem?”

“No. Well, most pugs are like that, she’s fine though. I had her checked out when I got her,” Will said, and turned to his side, resting and curling in against Hannibal again, resting the way he knew the doctor wanted him to, not just the way Will would if he were alone.

“I thought, at first glance, that you had adopted a pig,” Hannibal teased, and ran his fingers through Will’s hair, letting the chocolate brown curls spring into rings around his fingers.

Will rested his hand over Hannibal’s heart and placed a chaste kiss against his jaw. “Almost, but not quite. Pig probably smell better than her.”

“I was not about to say it aloud…” Hannibal laughed, and shucked his suit jacket off before he curled himself around Will, slowly, able to feel the heat of his body better without the extra layer in the way.

“She doesn’t know,” Will promised in a hushed whisper, moving them down the bed a bit to lay down together, half his body on Hannibal now, draped over him like he was some large pillow.

“We won’t tell her, that would be rude,” Hannibal whispered back, and held Will so that he could lay on his chest with one strong arm, eyes closed as he enjoyed the feeling of Will breathing.

Will hummed an agreement, eyes closed as he listened to the rhythmic beat of Hannibal’s heart, wanting so hard to stay awake and enjoy being close, but instead let his eyes finally droop closed.

 


	6. Chapter 6

The next morning, El was up and active, and crept around the old house a bit by herself before finding her way into Hannibal and Will’s room, and crawled into bed with them and the dogs, curling up at the foot with Winston, snuggling him.   
  
Winston woke for a moment, then licked the little girl’s short hair, and settled down with her again, with a heavy sigh. Hannibal opened his eyes, and looked down at El with a soft smile. “Good morning,” he whispered, doing his best not to wake Will.

El smiled but didn’t say anything, petting the fluffy dog as she snuggled him, and Winston didn’t seem to mind at all. “Soft,” she whispered, rubbing his belly. Winston wagged on the bed, and gave a happy grunt, rolling over so that his belly was up for more petting. 

Hannibal smiled at that, and nodded. “He is very soft,” Hannibal whispered, “he likes you, look at how he wags his tail. That is like a dog’s smile.”

“Smile,” El whispered and stroked her hand down Winston’s tail, smiling herself, calmed by the nightmare she had had before waking by just petting the dog now.

“Are you hungry?” Hannibal whispered as he watched Winston bond with the thin girl. Winston was already proving himself as a potential friend, and Hannibal began to consider therapy dogs for El as Wednesday snorted and woke to toddle over to El, and hoped for attention.

“Yes,” she said without hesitation, smiling at Hannibal but refused to let Winston go, rubbing her face against his soft coat of fur.

“If you would like to stay here with Winston and Wednesday, I will bring breakfast to you,” Hannibal said, not certain El was capable of going downstairs quite yet. She and Will were just getting used to their new muscles, building their strength slowly. “What would you like to eat?” Hannibal’s tone was fatherly and warm, very quiet, as though everything they said to each other was a secret.

“Eggos,” she said, her favorite food that Mike introduced her to, and she loved them more than anything else she had tried, though she hadn’t, admittedly, tried much.

“Eggos?” Hannibal was not certain what that was, but given El’s circumstances, he would go out of his way to find or make some … of whatever it was. “Very well. I may have to step out of the house for a moment, I will not be long,” Hannibal promised, as he untangled himself very slowly from Will, and covered him with the blanket before taking some clothes into the bathroom to change.

Will groaned as Hannibal left, half in and half out. “They’re just waffles, Hannibal,” he called after him, peeking an eye open at El, and then patted the bed where Hannibal had been sleeping before.

El moved up the bed with Winston following her, and she snuggled in under the covers, against the dog.

Hannibal stepped out of the bathroom, dressed and groomed, and smiled when he looked at them all in the bed, staring for a moment with soft eyes. “I’m sorry, what was that, Will?”

“Waffles. Eggos are waffles. They’re frozen and easy to make,” Will explained, watching El pat Winston with her small hands, closing her eyes as she focused on the soft feel of his fur, content.

“Frozen?” Hannibal asked, confused, but kept his voice soft as he watched El snuggle with Winston. A dog was precisely what she needed, unconditional and very safe affection from a fuzzy animal who could not ask painful questions.

Will sat up and beckoned Hannibal over to him, to explain something quietly to him. Hannibal went to Will’s side of the bed, and leaned over him with a little smile, and reached over to pet Winston’s head as he listened to Will.

“You could just make waffles if it would kill you to buy frozen ones,” Will offered, quietly, and knowingly. He didn’t know Hannibal too well, but he had a good idea about him and his pride. “She doesn’t know much other than what twelve year old boys have given her to eat.”

Hannibal understood. The waffles were purchased frozen and heated up, likely of very poor nutritional value. He looked at El, and sighed. “I will purchase some, and we will work on diversifying her tastes slowly,” Hannibal said, then leaned down to kiss Will’s cheek.

Will turned his face to catch Hannibal’s mouth in a slow kiss. “Don’t be long.” El effectively hid her face in the dog’s fur when they did that, and tried not to giggle.

Hannibal just patted El’s shoulder lightly, affectionately, almost petting her like she petted Winston, and smiled at Will. “I won’t. Is there anything from the store that you would care for, Will?”

“Is whiskey out of the question?” Will asked, almost teasingly.

“For the moment, yes, I’m afraid it is,” Hannibal said, and examined himself in the mirror, straightening his tie before Wednesday jumped off of the bed and followed Hannibal. “I see … are we going together?”

“Put her on the leash, she likes to roam,” Will said, sighing heavily as he rolled back over, and watched El with Winston, both of them snoozing again.

Hannibal put Wednesday on her leash, and led the noisy dog who breathed like a backfiring car down the stairs and out of the door. Twenty minutes later, he returned and bustled around in the kitchen before returning with a large tray that contained a small breakfast for both El and Will. Will had a large waffle with sausage and fruit, and El had the same, except for two Eggo’s, and a quarter piece of a homemade waffle. “Breakfast is served,” Hannibal said, softly.

El had dozed the whole time and Will watched her to be sure she was okay, not needing to talk to understand her needs. Like El, he had his own brand of heightened empathy, and could sense her. He sat up and took his tray, and El slowly woke, rubbing her eyes, which brightened when she saw the eggos.

“Thank you,” she said to Hannibal, with a big grin.

“You are welcome. You have Eggos from the store, and part of an Eggo that I made in the kitchen. You will have to tell me which you prefer,” he smiled, and disappeared downstairs again with Wednesday, then came back up with two cups of coffee and some milk for El.

El looked at the eggos and then the one that was made by Hannibal. She looked over at Will who ate his without much thought, and then tried her own. It was rich, buttery, and so much better than the flat, yellow ones left on her plate. Will looked over and smiled, and offered her more of his own.

Hannibal beamed with pride at his silent, but happy patients, and set their drinks down. “I have more downstairs, El, would you like a whole homemade Eggo?” he offered as he set her milk near enough that she could reach over Winston to get it.

El nodded her head frantically. “S-syrup?” she said pointing to the maple stuff on it. “Please.”

“With syrup, of course,” Hannibal nodded, and took her old plate downstairs with a smile over his shoulder at Will, quite happy that El preferred  _ his _ waffles.

Will smiled  as Hannibal went to get more waffles for El, and handed her a glass of milk of while she waited. She took it and drank it down. Wil finished his meal and set the tray aside for now, happy to watch El with Winston.

Hannibal returned in a few minutes with a new plate for El, and presented it to her, “Here you are, homemade Eggo with syrup and some fruit,” he smiled, fondly. The fruit was fresh berries arranged around the waffle, artistically, and some sausage for protein. “You are already finished?” Hannibal asked Will, impressed.

Will nodded. “I was starved.”

El dug in with her hands to the waffles and fruit, not stopping once, licking her fingers each time syrup dripped too far down her hands, and drank her milk.

Hannibal watched as he sipped his coffee, not at all compelled to correct her at this point. She was like a little animal lured in from the woods, table manners would come, eventually. “An appetite is a very good sign,” he said, as he returned from the bathroom with a warm, wet facecloth for El’s hands when she was finished with her waffle, and set it on the side table.

Will made room on his side for Hannibal to sit closer if he wanted, both of them watching El out of the corner of their eyes so she didn’t feel put on the spot. She hardly noticed as she ate, hungrier than Will it seemed, eating everything she was given.

Hannibal sat near Will and watched El, with a little smile as he held Will’s hand. It felt like a little family having breakfast in bed on a Sunday morning. It felt … complete. “Your respective metabolisms are likely racing, I can make more, if you’d like,” Hannibal offered Will.

“I’m okay,” Will said,but El looked up as she stuffed the last bit of sausage into her mouth, and handed her plate to Hannibal, and Will chuckled. “She might want more though.”

El flushed a little but smiled. “Please?”

Hannibal stood with a smile and took her plate, “Of course. You’re a growing girl, you require fuel. Your friends have been asking after you, by the way.”

“Mike?” she asked, her eyes wide and hopeful as he grin got bigger at the mention of the other boy. He’d asked her some weird dance, and she didn’t know what it was, but she wanted to go.

“Yes, Mike has called, numerous times. Perhaps if you are feeling well today, you may see them for a while in the drawing room downstairs,” Hannibal suggested, as he lingered in the doorway.

El nodded her head several times, and even slid off the bed slowly, to follow Hannibal, willing to show she was more than okay to go down stairs.

“You want to come with me? Very well, hold my hand, please, stairs may be difficult for you at the moment,” Hannibal said as he offered his hand to El, and smiled a little at Will.

El took his hand, her legs wobbly, still getting used to all this again, but she managed to take small steps down the stairs with him. Will scooted out of bed, slowly, in his flannel pajamas, and followed after them, holding the rail.

“Will, be very careful,” Hannibal cautioned over his shoulder as he helped El down the stairs with fatherly care, and kept ready in case Will stumbled behind him.

Winston was right next to Will as he descended the steps one at a time, slowly. “I’ve got it…” El was watching him over her shoulder, too, as Hannibal lead her down.

Hannibal guided El to the firm floor, and took her to the kitchen table before he went back to offer Will his arm. The house was immaculate now, and stylishly furnished and decorated. Hannibal had been busy while El and Will slept for a week, and it looked as though he made a home for them. “We’ll sit at the table for now, if you’d like.”

Will let himself be guided and then sat down, with El, at the table. “It looks like a real home now,” he mentioned, looking around at all the little things Hannibal had done to make it homely here.

“Thank you, I had a few things brought in from Baltimore to give it a personal touch. I couldn’t resist,” he smiled as he poured Will another cup of fresh coffee, the same blend he had made for him when he surprised him with breakfast, before, and squeezed oranges for a glass of juice for El. He put it in front of her before washing his hands and beginning to make another waffle. “That is orange juice, have you had it before?”

El sniffed the drink. “No,” she said, simply, and tasted it, making a puckered face, and then drank more of it. “Good.”

Will smiled and sipped his coffee. “Baltimore? So you are staying for a while then.” He’d thought for sure Hannibal would settle here for long.

“Yes, I have no definite plans to leave,” Hannibal said with a little smile as he poured batter into the waffle-maker, and closed the lid so that it would steam.

El watched the waffle maker, entranced by it and how it was making her homemade Eggos. Will watched a moment, a sense of family and bounding over taking him as he did. He swallowed a sip of coffee, his eyes wandering to Hannibal.

“Do you think they’ll continue to let her stay with us?”

“That is certainly my hope,” Hannibal said with a smile as he let El watch the waffle-maker’s magic, and opened it to pull out a perfect, golden-brown waffle that he put on a plate and began to garnish. She was charming, curious, and undeniably bright. He was beginning to feel more of a sense of home here and now than he had experienced in decades.

Will had no delusions that they wouldn’t be leaving them alone anytime soon, and keeping the two ‘special’ ones together was likely the best idea. “She needs a family.” Will felt a certain fatherly protection over El.

“She does, someone who accepts and understands her, ideally,” Hannibal said with a smile at El, and refilled her orange juice. “That would be nice, wouldn’t it?” he asked her, as he sat down, finally.

El didn’t mind if they talked about her, she liked what they were saying, and smiled at them both, kicking her feet that barely touched the ground. Once the plate was set in front of her, she used her fingers to tear the waffle apart, and licked syrup from her fingers. “Mhm,” she hummed.

“It is ideal that El should stay with a psychiatrist, and someone very much like her…” Hannibal mused as he got up to get another wet cloth for El’s fingers when she was done so that Winston did not end up full of syrup.

At El’s feet Winston sat, and she ran her toes through his soft fur, delighted by the feel. Will watched her as he drank his coffee, aware that things were moving quite quickly with Hannibal in this sort of talk, but he felt oddly connected to the doctor in ways he couldn’t explain. He’d seen the man take down guards like he’d done it many times before, as if killing were nothing new to him, as if it were as natural as breathing.

And it didn’t bother Will one bit.

“She’s lucky.”

“I think we are all lucky,” Hannibal said with a smile at Will over his cup of coffee as he gazed at him adoringly, and took his hand on the table. “I would not change a thing.”

“You’re not frightened of us?” Will asked Hannibal, letting their fingers thread together. Being with Hannibal would be tough for the community to see, and they might have to keep most of it behind doors, and hushed.

“Not at all. One may be capable of a great many things, but not indiscriminately so, in your cases. I would not hurt either of you any more than either of you would hurt me,” Hannibal said, confidently.

Will smiled at that, and El looked over at them both as she licked syrup from her fingers. “Never hurt,” she said quietly, and smiled.

“No, never hurt,” Hannibal said, and handed her the warm, wet cloth for her hands. “This is for if you would like to wipe your fingers after licking them, it will feel nice and clean.” He was aware that she had been treated like a soldier and an object in the laboratory, and Hannibal was wise enough never to shame El for her habits, no matter how subtly. She needed acceptance, more than anything right now, and a feeling of safety.  “If at any time you would care for more homemade Eggos, I will be happy to make them for you,” he assured her.

She took the warm, wet cloth and wiped her hands with it and then her face too, it felt nice. She nodded her head slowly. “I would like that.”

Will had a feeling they would be eating ‘Eggos’ for a while.

“Would you like to take a shower or a bath later? I made certain that your bathroom is fully stocked with everything you might need. I also took down Mike’s phone number, if you wanted to arrange for your friends to visit. I can make the call, if you like,” Hannibal said as he took El’s plate to the sink and began to wash it.

“Mike,” she said, wanting that first, but Will touched her arm gently.

“A bath would be good first. While you clean up, Hannibal can call them over, okay?” Will offered to her quietly, and she smiled, nodding her.

“Okay.”

“Mike by himself, or all three of them?” Hannibal asked as he smiled a little, aware that Mike (who had called every single day) was much closer to her than the others. Hannibal dried El’s plate, and Will’s, and put them away, tidying up so that the kitchen was orderly and spotless once again. 

“Just Mike,” she said and drank the last of her juice. “For now.”

“That sounds lovely. Would you like me to show you how to operate our bathtub and shower? The faucets are rather old-fashioned,” Hannibal offered as he began to plan what sort of cookies to make for Mike’s visit.

“Please,” El said politely, trying to be as nice and sweet as possible, and slipped down off her chair, taking Hannibal’s hand.

Hannibal smiled brightly when she did that, and he looked back at Will as he led her out of the room. “I will be back in a moment,” he said, and helped El up the long flight of oak stairs, and showed her the bathroom that was off of her bedroom. Both rooms were decorated with fireflies.

He came down a moment later, with a smile. “She’s very sweet, isn’t she?”

“She doesn’t know much else how to be. They used her as a weapon, we only want to show her love,” Will said, though he’d only seen her for a few hours now, his connection with her was deeper than that, even if he couldn’t explain it.

“She’s not frightened of us, is she?” Hannibal asked, with concern as he looked at Will.

“No. She likes us.” Will sipped his coffee, still fatigued, he could feel his heart racing fast in his chest, his body working hard to bring him back to the physical shape he’d been before he… well, essentially, died.

Hannibal dried his surgeon’s hands, and walked back to the table to sit with Will. “I have been considering the possibility of acquiring a therapy dog, for El.”

“Three dogs isn’t enough?” Will teased, more than happy to get another dog. He knew that living here with Hannibal was a better choice for her anyway than living in Will’s ratty old trailer.

“Three dogs are sufficient in number, but a therapy dog is usually trained to recognize hyperarousal, or dissociation, to wake a patient from distressing dreams. Winston is a friend, of course, but not a specialist,” Hannibal said.

There were reasons Will preferred dogs over humans usually, for the exact reasons that Hannibal stated. “That sounds like a good idea.” He smiled just a little and set the empty coffee mug on the table.

“I’ll contact a provider I’m familiar with tomorrow morning. Have you had any nightmares, Will?” Hannibal asked, and took Will’s hand over the table.

“Not when you’re there with me,” Will said, honestly. “Mostly just dark, lots of dark, but it’s quiet.” He squeezed Hannibal’s hand.

“I am relieved that you have returned, from the dark,” Hannibal said as he looked at Will. “I prefer the world with you in it.”

“You hardly know me,” Will pointed out, and yet the doctor had made room for him in his house, had taken care of him. There was something profound in that, and Will knew their connection was almost as deep as the one he felt  with El, and yet so very different.

“We have not been acquainted long, but I feel we are beginning to understand one another. I cannot say that I have been understood very many times, I am sure you could say the same,” Hannibal said, as he brushed his thumb over the rough skin of Will’s knuckles.

Killing and death had a way of bringing people together. Well, the death part, Will thought. The killing they’d done together had been unexpected, and yet it had felt natural to stand beside Hannibal and take on the world. It was far more intimate than anything he'd ever done. Will turned his palm and threaded their fingers together once more. “You are a vicious monster beneath your person suit,  more than the real monster anticipated. I've never seen elegance in something that should have been so horrible.”

Hannibal blushed at that, from his long neck to his cheekbones, and he looked up at Will again, eyes sparkling. “Thank you. You are a singularity: a wild, compassionate, brutal killer with a strong sense of justice and a mind I could never tire of exploring.”

Killer. That was one thing Will never expected to be, let alone be called. He smirked, his flushed skin matching Hannibal's. “Did what I had to do.”

“You did it beautifully,” Hannibal whispered, and moved closer, then swallowed before he kissed Will’s lips, slowly.

Will scooted closer in his chair, reaching one hand to tugged Hannibal closer with a shaky fist curled into his shirt. Their lips met, and Will was sure he felt sparks fly through his veins.

Hannibal moved out of his chair, and bent over Will as they kissed, heart pounding hard as he tipped Will’s head back, and locked their lips, one hand cradling the back of his head. Will held fast to Hannibal's waist with his other hand, using him to help pull himself to his feet, engulfed in Hannibal's embrace, sliding his tongue insistently against Hannibal's.

Hannibal pulled Will up to him, slowly, with no effort at all, and walked him to the living room, slowly, then laid him on the couch while they kissed. Hannibal laid over him, utterly lost in the moment. Chuckling as he was laid out, Will kept Hannibal within reach, spreading his thighs so the other man could lay between, and kissed him passionately.

Hannibal had wanted more with Will from the second they had dressed again after their passionate interlude at Will’s place, and now that Will was strong enough for this, Hannibal poured his soul into the kiss. He kissed Will with the regret he felt when he thought he had lost him, the joy of finding him alive again, every heady, alien emotion that flooded through Hannibal since Will’s return fuelled the way he kissed the Chief.

Heating up quickly, Will flushed under his flannel pajamas, heart pounding against his ribcage, able to  _ feel _ the passion rolling off Hannibal in waves. He slipped his hand in through dark blond locks and tugged gently, as he caught Hannibal’s bottom lip between his teeth.

Hannibal’s slicked back hair fell forward at the touch, mussed and undone as Will carded his hand through the silky, pampered strands. He moaned at the feeling of Will’s teeth, and ran one hand over his thigh, hitching it up around his own hips.

Will’s nerves felt on fire, delightfully so, as if all were brand new and feeling touch and lust again for the first time. He slipped his legs around Hannibal’s hips, holding him ever close, groin to groin. He sucked Hannibal’s lip and then licked it. 

“Will,” Hannibal whispered, entranced by the feeling and smell of Will, the way he kissed, the squeeze of his legs and the bulge between them. “I’ve wanted to touch you since we left your house, last.”

“I think I dreamed about this, about you,” Will replied, quietly, against Hannibal’s mouth, sliding hands up the front of his shirt, touching skin he felt he’d been denied for too long.

“While you were asleep?” Hannibal whispered against Will’s mouth, and glided his hot mouth down to the side of Will’s throat.

“Yes,” Will whispered, roughly, canting his head back, chin up, giving Hannibal more access to his neck, that flushed bright with lust.

“No sooner did you have a body than you wanted to let me touch it again…” Hannibal purred, and bit at the side of Will’s neck, then slid one palm under Will’s pajama shirt, over his now scarless skin.

Will had returned whole, without blemish or marks, without scars from his injuries that got him put in Hawkins to start. He was a blank canvas there for Hannibal to mark any which way he deemed fitting. “Maybe I... came back for you.”

Hannibal moaned softly at the thought, and kissed Will’s lips with almost savage passion as he ground their hips together slowly, and undid Will’s shirt, as though it offended him by keeping Will’s beautiful skin covered.

Will started to do the same with Hannibal’s shirt, undoing buttons until he his hands roved over perfectly tanned planes of muscle and hair, and then carded his hand through Hannibal’s hair again, keeping him there for another long, languid kiss.

Hannibal’s chest laid over Will’s skin to skin as they locked together in a kiss. He groaned and ran his hand up the side of Will’s narrow waist to his heart, where he laid his palm over the beating organ. He loved the feeling of the wild thing in Will’s chest as it slammed against his palm, alive and unruly as ever.

Will treasured every moment like this, filing it away in his mind as they continued to make new, perfect memories. He rolled his hips up against Hannibal's, grating and grinding for friction.

El was still taking her shower. Hannibal could hear the water running, and counted himself lucky to steal a moment like this with Will. Every touch sent sparks shooting down Hannibal’s long spine. “Shall we go upstairs?” Hannibal whispered, softly and darkly against Will’s lips.

“Yes,” Will said, more than anything he wanted to be consumed by Hannibal, he wanted to feel his touch all over him not just through clothes.

Hannibal picked Will up, off the couch, in his arms, and carried him upstairs like a bride, kissing him the entire time. He walked Will into the bedroom and kicked the door closed before he laid him on the bed and removed his own shirt, then stripped Will’s off as he kissed his throat.

Will helped and threw the shirt aside, and moved his hands right for Hannibal’s pants, slowly gripping the waistband to undo them. “You are wearing too much, still.”

“I have a habit of over-dressing,” Hannibal whispered, as he arched up, stomach flexed to let Will peel his trousers off, and did the same to him, yanking the tie on his pajama pants undone, impatiently. 

Will undid the button and then the zipper, and pushed them down Hannibal’s thick, muscular thighs. Then, he touched every bit of skin he could manage, glancing Hannibal over with a less hurried eye than the last time they were like this together. “You should wear less, you’re hiding so much.”

Hannibal shucked his pants off, his socks, too, only wearing his underwear now, as he pulled Will’s pajama bottoms off, smoothly, and kissed his hip. “Does it make you long to undo me?” Hannibal purred, and kissed his way over to Will’s cock, nuzzling it slowly.

“I have wanted to undo that tie of yours since you walked into the station,” Will groaned, spreading his thighs, reaching for Hannibal’s  shoulders, sliding fingers up to the back of his neck. “To see if you unravel with it.”

Hannibal moaned and dragged his tongue over Will’s cock slowly, then sucked him into his hot mouth and wrapped his deft tongue around Will, moaning softly at the taste of his precome. Will’s hand splayed over the back of his head, keeping him there as he rolled his hips up into the hot cavernous feeling.

Hannibal had done this before, many, many times but never with Will. He took him down deep as he stroked his balls slowly, palming them, tugging at them while his tongue teased and rasped over Will’s shaft as he bobbed his head, slowly.

“Oh,God-” Will groaned, reaching every sense in his body out to touch Hannibal in every way he could, reeling in the feedback he got off Hannibal, able to feel his lust and need for him.

Hannibal’s shoulders spread wide. They were swimmer’s shoulders, solid and strong, and flexed seductively every time Hannibal raised his head to suck at the tip of Will’s cock, hollowing his cheeks.

Will hummed a pleased groan, tugging on Hannibal’s hair with each pass of tongue, feeling his toes curl into the bedspread. Heat began pool in his lower back, pressing his hips up into Hannibal’s perfect mouth.

Dark blonde, ashy hair silken against Will’s fingertips, and Hannibal groaned as he ground his cock against the bed through the briefs that still held him trapped inside them. He glanced up at Will with dark eyes as he let him pound against the back of his throat, groaning at the feeling of it, at the scent of Will’s short, curly hair as his nose buried deep in it. One of Hannibal’s hands slipped under Will’s smooth, bare ass, the other went to the nightstand.

Will hitched his hips higher, watching Hannibal as he all but devoured his cock, watching it slip past his perfect lips over and over again. “I need you, Hannibal.”

“Need me?” Hannibal asked breathlessly as he pulled his mouth off, and opened a small bottle of lube he had hidden in the nightstand with one hand, then slicked his fingers and used them to stroke the sensitive skin just around the rim of Will’s entrance.

“ _ Want _ You,” Will breathed out slowly, spreading even more for Hannibal, sea-blue eyes watching him intently.

In response, Hannibal slipped two fingers into Will, slick and skilled as they sank into Will up to the first knuckle, then the second, and finally, all the way in. “Then you shall have me,” Hannibal promised as he squeezed Will’s cock with his free hand, and stroked it.

Swallowing down a groan, Will writhed under Hannibal, panting as the sensation hurt at first, and then changed into pleasure, feeling long fingers stroke his prostate beautifully. “Good.”

Hannibal’s bent fingers rubbed against Will’s prostate as he stretched and opened him with every stroke of his fingers, playing Will as he played the harpsichord, touching him just so to coax the beautiful sounds from him. “Beautiful Will…” Hannibal whispered, and bent his fingers a little more, deliberately pressing against the sensitive spot in Will’s body. “Have you had a man before?”

“Once,” Will groaned, his eyes never leaving Hannibal’s, watching the darkness of his eyes spread wider and wider. “In college.”

Hannibal could not help but feel instantly jealous of whomever it was. He eased his fingers out with a kiss, and stripped his briefs off, then let Will watch him slick himself with the lubricant. “A long time ago…”

“Very. I haven’t looked at anyone since, not until you,” Will promised, watching Hannibal. He licked his lips and hitched his hips up.

Hannibal crawled between Will’s thighs again, his eyes dark and obsessively focused on Will, his shoulder shifting like a jungle cat’s. He kissed his head into the pillow, and guided Will’s legs up around his own waist, then pressed himself inside, slowly. “Will…”

Will clutched Hannibal tightly, fingers around his shoulders, hooked under his arms, legs tight around his slim hips. He breathed out slowly against Hannibal’s mouth as he was penetrated, breathing through it.

Hannibal pressed himself in, until he was buried hip-deep in Will’s warm, smooth body, and stole a look at Will’s perfectly handsome face before he began to ebb into him, slowly at first, both arms wrapped under Will’s back, hooked beneath Will’s arms with his hands clenching the tops of Will’s shoulders. 

Every nerve was set on fire, and Will was sure he’d burn up from the heat, inside and out. He wrapped his arms around Hannibal’s shoulders, sharing breath as placed sloppy kisses to his face, his mouth, his neck. “Harder-”

Hannibal had yearned for this since the first second he’d touched Will, even a simple brush of their fingers. He let go of Will’s shoulders, and gripped his hips with both hands, then began to fuck him into the mattress, with all the passion he had held back before while he pinned Will to the sheets.

Will brought his knees  to his chest, giving Hannibal more leverage, taking him in deeper as gasps and moans escaped his frame. His hands pressed into Hannibal’s chest, one over his heart, the other pinched and twisted a nipple.

Hannibal hissed softly at the pinch to his nipple, which made his nerves careen on the edge of losing control. “Will-” he moaned, and pressed Will’s thighs to his chest as his hips slapped Will’s ass, hard enough to leave them pink and hot from friction when Hannibal gasped hard, his head dropped, and he came with a low, feral moan.

Tugging Hannibal’s hair, Will felt the spasm, filling him, and follow shortly behind, panting Hannibal’s name in low tones under his breath, and then slowly tried to calm, tried to make his way out of the white hot heat of pleasure Hannibal had put him in.

Hannibal’s body slowed, save for his racing heart, and he let Will’s legs back down to the bed before he kissed the underside of Will’s jaw, with affection that bordered on reverence. “Will…”

Will nuzzled and kissed Hannibal’s face and lips, cupping his jaw with both hands as he gazed up at him, eyes bright blue against pleasure flushed skin. “We could do that again…”

“And again, and again,” Hannibal whispered as he stared back down at Will, his eyes smiling as he stroked Will’s cheek with one hand. “You are astounding.”

Will leaned up to kiss Hannibal once more, and then rolled him over, and sat on his hips. “You realize I can’t let you return to Baltimore?”

Hannibal laid on his back, stretched out on the bed … their bed, and smiled up at Will. “Are you going to keep me here, Police Chief Graham?” he asked, with a new softness to his gaze as he ran his palms over Will’s thighs. “It does seem the townspeople are in need of some extended psychological support after the recent events.”

“I could find a lot of reasons to handcuff and detain you,” Will whispered and kissed Hannibal slowly, softly. He sighed; “They do. We’re very limited here.”

Hannibal smiled, and leaned up to return the kiss, then wrapped his arms around Will’s back. “When I arrived in Hawkins, I could not imagine staying longer than I absolutely had to. Now that I have you, I am too wise to imagine that my heart would mend if I left you behind. I have no intention of leaving, Will.”

“I would be very upset if you left us,” Will said, with a smile, meaning El and him alike. “It’s gonna be difficult to be together here. Or anywhere, for that matter.” But that wouldn’t stop him.

Hannibal nodded, and nuzzled Will’s face, able to understand that much. “I think you and I will handle that, in our own way,” Hannibal whispered, with a slight smile on his sculpted lips.

Will gave a little smile in return. Their lives would be private, but he almost preferred it that way. “Yeah…” His smile got wider. “We might want to check on El.” Will felt her presence profoundly. “Kitchen.”

Hannibal smiled, and kissed Will again with a sigh, then stood to stretch and dress, quite happy to let Will look him over. “Is she distressed?”

Will shook his head, watching Hannibal, letting go his eyes rove over tanned skin with a sheepish smile. “She’s okay. Curious though.”

Hannibal chuckled to himself and stole a kiss from Will as he buttoned his shirt . “I’m sure she is..”

“About the waffle maker,” Will chuckled, leaning to grab his pajama pants again, and the top. “You might have created a waffle monster.”

“Ah, we’ll have to hide that somewhere special when we are not using it,” Hannibal said, as he tied his tie and handed Will his shirt from where it fell on the floor.

Will dressed and then wrapped his arms around Hannibal’s shoulders, gazing at him up close. “Or show her how to use it properly, she’s smart.”

“She would ruin her supper,” Hannibal sighed, and looked at Will as he helped him stand with a kiss.

“We've only just had breakfast,” Will pointed out, and tugged Hannibal toward the door gently. “You were going to make cookies anyway, weren't you?”

“I was, I became distracted,” Hannibal laughed as they headed to the door together.

Will took Hannibal's hand and let the other man lead and help him down the stairs again. El was in the kitchen curiously looking at everything, eying the waffle maker, but had not touched it.

“Hungry again?” Hannibal asked El with a soft, knowing smile.

She raised her brows up at him, her facial expressions were very vibrant with lack of hair covering her face and ears, making her very open to read, and yet an enigma at the same time.

Hannibal laughed, and touched her shoulder lightly as he picked the phone up, off of it’s cradle on the wall. “Shall I call Mike? I can show both of you how to make waffles for lunch.”

El’s face lit up, bright and sunny, where the weather outside was not. She nodded her head more than necessary, and then hugged Hannibal tightly. She was growing quite used to him as she had Will. “Thank you.” 

Hannibal seemed surprised for a fraction of a second, then hugged El back, patting her short hair very gently. “You are quite welcome. Would you like to call, or shall I?”

“You,” she said, looking at the phone and very unsure of how it worked or if she might blow it up on accident.

“Very well,” Hannibal said with a smile and dialed Mike’s phone number, then asked for Mike when his mother answered, and waited. “Hello, Michael. It’s Doctor Lecter. El was wondering if you might like to come over for lunch. Yes, of course, ask your mother, I can wait.” He smiled at El.

El may have just as well been jumping around with exciting as she all but buzzed, looking from Hannibal to Will. Will walked over and started to get the ingredients out for more waffles, and El went to help, to keep herself busy.

“Noon would be lovely. We shall see you then. Goodbye,” Hannibal smiled as he watched El flutter around the kitchen like a delicate little bird. “He will be here at noon, not long at all. Perhaps we’ll have chicken and waffles? That is an American delicacy, is it not?” Hannibal asked, eyebrow arched at Will.

Will laughed. “We’d at least have some protein in our meal.” El nodded, and set the eggs out gently on the counter when Will handed them to her. She was dressed impeccably, in a nice  yellow dress that Hannibal had obviously picked out for her.

“You look very nice, let’s put an apron on over your outfit,” Hannibal said as he pulled two aprons from a cupboard, and offered to put on on El.

El stared at Hannibal, not sure what that was, but let him tie it around her waist and behind her neck, to keep her dress clean. She patted her hands on it.

“There, very nice,” Hannibal said, and put on on himself with a smile at Will. “Would you like one too, or are you content to watch?”

“Content to watch. I don’t want to set anything on fire,” Will said, taking up a stool by the counter. El looked over at him, startled at his remark. 

Hannibal chuckled, and put one hand on her back, comfortingly. “No one is about to start any fires,” he said, then went to the fridge and pulled some chicken out, the pieces soaking in cold buttermilk in a covered glass bowl, and began to make seasoning for it. “I did hear that you are particularly fond of fried chicken,” Hannibal said with a glance at Will.

“Oh yeah? Who told you that?” Will asked, leaning over to place his elbows on the counter, watching as El was very fixated on What Hannibal did, as if committing it all to memory.

“I met Maude at the grocery store the other day, and mentioned you. She said you loved fried chicken, so I decided to purchase what I might need to prepare it,” Hannibal smiled, mixing spices and flour in a bowl.

“Amazing what people will take with them from a conversation,” Will said, though he did remember saying that, it was something his mother made and the last thing he remembered her making before she died.

Hannibal smiled, and began to prepare the chicken after washing his hands, and rolling up his sleeves. “It is important to be clean in the kitchen,” he told El, “a good chef, like a good doctor, works with clean hands.”

El looked at her own hands and held them up, brows furrowed. They looked clean. “Mine?” she asked, holding them out for Hannibal to inspect.

Hannibal bent down and inspected El’s hands, then nodded, “Still nice and clean from your bath, but perhaps another wash would be nice since we will be working with them in our food,” he said, and started the water for her, testing the temperature first.

Smiling, El stepped up and held her hands under the water and soaped them up, washing them really well, and then dried them with the towel Hannibal gave to her. Washing her hands had been much easier than taking a shower, which took some courage on her part.

“Very nice,” Hannibal said, as he began to prepare a couple of very heavy cast iron pans on the stove, which he lifted as though they were nothing, obviously used to handling them, and opened the windows as he began to heat the deep pools of golden oil. “This will not truly be deep-fried, of course, but I will do my best.”

Will canted his head at them as El watched Hannibal, observing everything he did, and glanced over her shoulder at Will now and then with a smile, just to be sure he was still there. “What will it be?” she asked, curious.

“It will be golden, crispy chicken to serve with your waffles with spicy honey to drizzle over the meat. Would you like to help?” he offered, and finished mixing a bowl of flour and seasonings. “We are going to pull the chicken from the milk, let it drip, then pack flour onto it with our hands, then I will put it in the oil and it will bubble as it cooks.”

El nodded, of course she wanted to help, she washed her hands right? “Chicken and waffles,” she said, determined.

Hannibal brought a chair to the counter for her to kneel on if she wished, and demonstrated how to pluck the chicken out of the cold milk bath, then coat it in a thick layer of flour, then sank it into the deep, hot pool of oil where it began to bubble.

The oil bubbled and crackled as the chicken was placed into it and El stared at it in wonder. She took a piece herself and carefully dredged it in flour and then laid it into the deep skillet, jumping a little in her chair as it hissed and popped.

“There, very good. We must be careful around the oil,” Hannibal cautioned El as he added another piece smoothly. “The most important thing to remember is no splashes, and keep back from the pan,” he assured her, then stole a look back at Will.

Will was smiling at them, nothing of the gruff Police Chief he was when he met Hannibal. “It smells good,” he reassured El, who smiled brightly over at him, keeping far from the pan, just in case.

Hannibal helped her ease the next piece of chicken into the oil, until all the pieces were bubbling away, and Hannibal began to use a slotted spoon to turn them in the oil bath, carefully. “The deeper the oil, the more evenly they will cook,” he explained, and smiled back at Will, enjoying the domestic moment.

“When I was a boy, my mother used a big pot full of oil to deep fry a whole chicken,” Will explained, mostly to El, but he knew Hannibal was listening in. “She’d make mashed potatoes and corn to go with it.”

“Perhaps if this goes well, we will invest in such a pot,” Hannibal chuckled, watching Will as he spoke of his mother, which Hannibal knew was not something he did often. “It is incredible what rich memories can be evoked with the smell and taste of a childhood food.”

“She… died when I was young,” Will said, quietly, looking at the counter as El and Hannibal worked.

Hannibal looked back at Will, sympathetically. It was not often he felt sympathy, but he felt his chest ache at the sadness in Will’s eyes, and reached out with one hand to touch Will’s shoulder, to comfort him. The urge to comfort was so alien after having not felt it for many, many years, but Hannibal tried not to startle at the feeling, and instead, let his hand linger on Will’s shoulder. “I am sorry, Will.”

“I was seven,” Will replied, folding in on himself a little. El tugged Hannibal’s sleeve to show the chicken was golden and perfect.

Hannibal spooned the chicken onto thick sets of paper towels and let them drain before he set the spoon aside, and went to Will. “I was nine when my parents died,” he told Will, softly. He never spoke about them, either.

“Both of them?” Will asked, not trying to upset El with this talk, but she seemed indifferent.

“Yes,” Hannibal nodded, and he took a deep breath. “There was political unrest. Soldiers came through. My sister and I were hidden, but my Mother and Father did not survive.”

“Sorry to hear,” Will said quietly. “Where  _ are _ you from?”

“Lithuania,” Hannibal said, softly, and moved away to turn the stove off, so the oil would cool. He inspected the chicken, with almost clinical detachment.

“Ah.” Will swallowed, feeling a distance start to come between them, like a barricade. El slipped down off the chair and moved it back to where it had been before, and then hugged Hannibal again.

Hannibal smiled softly, and hugged her with one arm. “Thank you, El.”

El smiled softly up at Hannibal and then the doorbell rang, and she ran to open it, knowing she had to use her hands and not her mind to do it, though the latter was tiring anyway. Will snuck a hug to Hannibal from behind, squeezing his hips once, and then went after El to assure Mike’s mother adults were present.

Hannibal smiled back at Will, softly, grateful for their efforts to pull him from unpleasant memories. His family. He washed his hands and followed them to greet the pleasant but thoroughly suburban Mrs. Wheeler. “Thank you for bringing him, Mrs. Wheeler. I can drive Michael home in time for dinner, if you would like.”

“That would be wonderful,” she said, looking at Hannibal and Will both with an odd, almost uneasy, suspecting smile. “Mike’s talked about nothing but seeing … El.” she looked at the girl.

“You can go, mom!” Mike said, hurriedly, rolling his eyes a little as his mom planted a kiss on his head and showed herself out.

Once Mrs. Wheeler was gone, El hugged Mike tightly. “Mike…”

Hannibal smiled when Mrs. Wheeler was gone, well aware of what that look meant. It was a shame she was unlikely to have a business card… “When you are hungry, we plan to prepare chicken and waffles in the kitchen for lunch.”

“I helped,” El said, saying much more aloud now that Mike was here. She took his hand and took the boy back to the kitchen. Will chuckled and slipped his own hand into Hannibal’s while the two kid were distracted.

“You certainly did,” Hannibal said as he squeezed Will’s hand in his own, and stole a kiss from his cheek as they followed the kids into the kitchen. It felt like this life had been waiting for all three of them to come in, and assume their rightful places.

El was showing Mike the waffle maker, and the boy, to his credit, just laughed as how enthused she was about it. Will squeezed Hannibal’s hand once more and then let go to help her set up the iron while Hannibal got the batter ready.

“It’s going to be hot, so we have to be careful,” Will advised her, and she just shrugged slim, petite shoulders at him.

Hannibal handed the batter bowl over, with a ladle. “Not too much at once,” he cautioned.

Will opened the iron and made sure a bit of butter was put and brushed over the grooves first, and then let El have the ladle, watching her as she very carefully poured it in. “Just until it almost fills the holes… Like that.”

“Perfect,” Hannibal nodded. He and Will watched over El’s shoulders, like two protective fathers.

Mike helped and closed the waffle maker lid, which started to steam. “How long does it take?” They only ate Eggos at his house.

“Not long at all, perhaps thirty seconds,” Hannibal said with a little smile as they watched steam stream from the sides of the expensive gadget. He moved to check on the chicken, which was still very warm, and he moved it to a large, beautiful plate, then garnished it with a few delicate greens.

“Oh man, Dustin and Lucas are going to be so jealous,” Mike said, watching the waffle maker with El, who really seemed to enjoy the process of making them. “Only place we’ve ever had waffles like this was Benny’s.”

Hannibal nodded that it was time to open the waffle maker, and stood closer as El opened it. “I always enjoy food that I’ve made at home more than food at any restaurant,” Hannibal said, and guided El as she took the waffle out with a pair of small, silver tongs.

El smiled as she plated the waffle and handed it to Mike. “Here mike.” She then ladled up more mixture into the maker and closed it again. Will helped put a piece of chicken on the waffle and handed Mike a fork.

“It is always very polite to serve our guests first,” Hannibal said with a grin as he patted El’s shoulder, praising her for her manners as he set a jar of honey with a wooden honey dipper in it, waiting to be used. “The honey is spiced, fair warning,” he said to Mike.

“Spiced?” Mike asked, looking at it. Will put a drizzle on his plate to try first before he took more. Mike licked it up and then reached for it. “That’s neat!”

“Would you like some, Will?” Hannibal asked as he let El choose a piece of chicken for herself, and Hannibal stood at the waffle maker to take over so that she could sit with Mike.

Another waffle was out and El put her chicken on it and then tried the honey, shocked by the taste, but she added more to her chicken and waffle. Will wasn’t starved, but he wasn’t  _ not _ hungry either.

“I’ll have some, sure.”

Hannibal made more for Will, and then joined him at the table, with a cup of coffee, and a plate with some chicken for himself, no waffle this time. “Bon Appetit.”

Will put a lot of the spicy honey on his own and cut into both pieces of the meal and ate it together with a little hum. El and Mike were busy in their corner of the table as Mike talked about the game of Dungeons and Dragons they were putting together soon for when their friend Will was better.

“This is good,” Will said to Hannibal, suddenly much hungrier as he started to eat.

“As good as the diner’s?” Hannibal asked, coyly, and watched Will start to eat with gusto. He enjoyed seeing Will with an appetite, and honey on his lips.

Mike nodded his head between bites and stories to Eleven, and Will chuckled, his mouthful of food as Hannibal asked the question mid bite. He swallowed. “Yeah, it’s much better.”

“Thank you,” Hannibal chuckled, charmed. “I’m afraid I don’t have authenticity on my side, but I’m relieved you enjoy it, all the same.” He sipped his coffee, and gave Will a significant look. They were both, to an extent, pretending to be less than what they were. So much for authenticity. “How is your sister?”

Mike finished his food and drank some of the juice Will poured for them. “She’s okay, I guess. Bummed about Barb, still.”

Will narrowed his eyes, but didn’t say anything. He’d need to look into Barb later.

“That is a shame, indeed,” Hannibal said with a sympathetic sigh. “How are Lucas and Dustin? Is life beginning to return to normal for all of you now that some of the excitement has died down a little?”

“Yeah, a little. Will’s still in the hospital though, but we go see him everyday,” Mike explained. “We’re planning our next D&D game.” He looked at El. “I’d invite you, but it’s boys only.”

“What is D and D?” El asked, curiously, not at all offended she wasn’t invited.

“It’s a game we play. Remember, I showed you the board for it, that’s how you showed us where Will was.”

“Is it at all like chess?” Hannibal asked, obviously not at all familiar with this element of pop culture.

“No,” Mike said, looking at the doctor. “There’ dice and figures and cards. It takes us  _ all _ day sometimes to finish a game.”

“I see,” Hannibal said, as he looked at El, making certain she was not offended by Mike’s outright banning her from playing a game with the boys. “Does your mother object to your having female guests?”

Mike shook his head. “Nah.” He looked at El. “No offence. Again.” He didn’t want the doctor mad at him, or El upset, but El simply smiled over at him.

“It’s okay, Mike. We’re friends. We can do other things together,” El said, very wise to catch on. She wouldn’t want to get between Mike and his friends anymore anyway.

Hannibal nodded, but made note of the exclusion. Perhaps the other boys did not like El quite as much, even if she did save their lives… He looked at Will across the table, and rose to get more juice and water. “Thirsty?”

“Water please,” Will said, only to rise and gather the dishes up and take them to the sink, near Hannibal. “Boys are like that,” he whispered. “Don’t take it so seriously. She can’t be included in everything. Sounds boring anyway.”

Hannibal pursed his lips as he listened to Will, and looked back at Mike and El chatting at the table. “She is very, very fond of him…” he sighed, just loudly enough for Will to hear.“I know. He likes her too, but let her ease into it,” Will explained, better able to get a feeling for the two children than Hannibal, who was protective of El as he would be a daughter. It was endearing.

Hannibal nodded slowly, and did his best to be patient again as he turned to stand next to Will, so that Will could lean against him if he wanted to. “I believe Mike’s mother is the sort to speculate, and gossip,” he said, quietly.

“Small town,” Will sighed, leaning his shoulder in against Hannibal, already feeling fatigued again, but he didn’t want to go back to sleep either. “She doesn’t know anything. I’m sure everyone knows you’re taking care of us here.”

Hannibal wrapped his arm around Will’s back, protectively, and kept him close. “America is rather behind the times, compared to some parts of Europe.”

“Someday perhaps it will change,” Will whispered as he canted his head back to look up at Hannibal.

“Change is the only constant in life, that, and those opposed to it simply because they cannot keep up,” Hannibal sighed, and caressed Will’s back with his hand, looking back at Will. “In the meantime, we will endure.”

If it weren’t for El and wanting to be near her new friends, and most of all Mike, Will would have suggested they move overseas, but then again, maybe that was moving too quickly, anyway. He leaned into Hannibal and rested his hand on the doctor’s chest. “We’ll work out a rhythm.”

“A rhythm?” Hannibal asked, intrigued at the thought, and unable to help but smile at Will with gleaming eyes. “As though we are dancing?”

“I guess so. I’ve never been good at dancing though,” Will admitted, hoping he was better at this relationship than that. At the table Mike and El were talking excitedly, he was telling her about the monster in the game they were putting together and El was just smiling, watching him.

“I’d be happy to teach you, once you’ve got your energy back. I can’t imagine dancing with anyone else, suddenly, and I do enjoy a waltz from time to time,” Hannibal smiled.

“Teach me to dance?” Will almost laughed, but was quiet to keep the kids from looking over as they shared an intimate moment to themselves. “I hope you don’t love your toes much.”

“My toes have endured much worse than you stepping on them,” Hannibal whispered, and touched Will’s hair at the back of his neck. “Perhaps I’ll invest in a pair of the steel-toed boots you seem to favor.”

“Or we do it barefoot,” Will lightly said, all his barriers had come down, letting Hannibal in where he swore he’d never let anyone else in again. They had shed their suits in front of one another, showing their monsters, no matter how much Will had wanted to deny his own.

“Barefoot might be a pleasant compromise,” Hannibal smiled. “I’m sure you are more graceful on your feet than you give yourself credit for, Will.”

“I think you’re biased and are going to be utterly upset when you find out I’m right,” Will teased, and kissed Hannibal’s jaw gently.

Hannibal smiled at the soft kiss with closed eyes, basking in the glow of Will’s attention as a cat might bask in the sun. “I promise to keep you, no matter how many times you step on my toes.”

They were practically strangers, and yet intimately connected in ways that Will was still trying to grasp. “I won’t hold it against you when you change your mind.”

Hannibal looked into Will’s striking eyes thoughtfully. “I cannot imagine a secret so dark, so terrible that I would forsake your company,” he said, seriously, and began to wonder the same about Will.

Will’s gaze flitted over Hannibal’s face, over his high cheekbones, his lips… “No? I guess killing a lot of people together pretty much tops it…”

“Does it?” Hannibal asked, neutrally, and tilted his head to watch Will as he replied.

Watching Hannibal’s eyes carefully, Will’s brows creased a little. “Something you’re not saying?”

Hannibal held Will’s gaze, the air between them stilled as Hannibal seemed to forget to breathe. “I think humanity is earned, not guaranteed at birth. If one chooses to act like an animal, they must be treated like an animal.”

“A domesticated animal, or a farmed one?” Will asked, swallowing thickly, almost afraid for the answer. What was not said between the lines spoke volumes, and yet Will didn’t move.

“A pig, specifically,” Hannibal said, and watched Will with unblinking eyes, almost ready for him to bolt away, and never come back at the implication.

“Long pig,” Will said very quietly, all the realization of what Hannibal was conveying setting in. He didn’t move an inch, but his fingers curled against Hannibal’s chest.

Hannibal’s chest stopped moving as Will’s fingers curled, and he swallowed, hands flexing at his sides as though he was barely able to keep himself from clutching at Will to stop him from leaving, suddenly. “Have you never longed to make the worst the world has to offer into something beautiful?”

“I’m not sure,” Will whispered back, but it felt like his chest was squeezing too tightly, and if he said wrong one thing, or stepped away, would Hannibal kill him, too. Or El. On second thought, El could handle her own, but she thoroughly trusted Hannibal now…

“I don’t think of you, or El, as needing improvement, in any way,” Hannibal assured Will softly, as though able to read his thoughts as he watched Will’s fleeing expressions. “Whenever feasible, one should prey upon the rude. Neither of you are rude, Will. I am beginning to think of you as something that may one day become a family.” Hannibal whispered.

Will could be considered a lot of things, and often times rude was one of them, but Hannibal was wishing to see only the good. This wasn’t a conversation to be had with the kids so close. “The rude…”

“The thoughtless, the reckless, those who make life for others around them difficult to bear. I have improved verbally abusive census takers and arrogant, untalented musicians. No one has ever missed them, Will. I employ an ethical butcher.”

“You...” the police chief said, letting everything settle in on his shoulders. It would be very hard to hide something like  _ that _ here, in Hawkins.

Hannibal stared at Will, able to watch him process the truth. “It is who I am, as much as your gift is a part of who you are.”

_ Gift _ . Will felt a sigh shake through him at the realization that he was like more a monster for what he could do and had done, than Hannibal ever would be. He was ethical in his kills, Will simply destroyed. Speechless, Will simply rested his head against Hannibal's shoulder, processing.

Hannibal swallowed, hard, and stroked Will’s hair with his hand as he held him, and swayed gently, as though to soothe him. “We are nearly dancing…”

Will wrapped one arm around Hannibal's shoulders, the other grasped at his waist, fingers clenched tight in his shirt. “I have a feeling we'll be doing this dance forever.”

“Is that objectionable?” Hannibal asked, and buried his nose in Will’s curls as they swayed.

Hannibal was consoling the wolf, rocking him into submission, gaining his trust, stroking his fur. A courting. Will sighed, “No.”

Will was a beautiful wolf, wild and wonderful, and while Hannibal longed to keep him, he would never dream of taming him. They could be wild together, savage and happy. “We belong together.”

“A matched set,” Will said, quietly, still able to hear the two kids talking, paying them no mind.

“Are you repulsed?” Hannibal asked, softly, still swaying with Will in his arms, lost in their own world.

“I… want to be,” Will whispered, biting the inside of his cheek, just to be sure he wasn’t dreaming this. “I  _ should _ be…” He let out a shaky breath, fingers curling tighter at Hannibal’s hip.

“Yet, you are horrified by your calm acceptance,” Hannibal murmured, close to Will’s lips. He nuzzled Will’s angelic profile, and closed his eyes. “Perhaps even disturbed by a surge of delight.”

“Maybe,” Will said, sure that Hannibal was right, as Will wasn’t quite sure himself. He did know he couldn’t move away from Hannibal. He moved his lips over to Hannibal’s, placing a chaste kiss there.

Hannibal relaxed at the feather-light, reassuring kiss to his lips, and laid one palm over Will’s heart. “How did you manage so many years in a calm, sedate little town, Will?”

“I found peaceful head-space in the quiet,” Will confessed, eyes half hooded as he gazed at Hannibal up close, lips brushing against the doctor’s as he spoke.

“So peaceful that you consumed a bottle of whiskey every two days?” Hannibal asked, having heard of the Chief’s habits.

“It keeps things in check,” Will said, dropping his eyes down as though ashamed of that little tidbit of information. He turned his head away.

Hannibal turned Will’s face back toward his own with a gentle touch of his hand, and smiled, able to understand. “Peace is difficult to bear to those of us built for times of war.”

“War?” Will looked at Hannibal with a skeptical brow.

“Darkness and adventure, if not literal war,” Hannibal chuckled.

Will hummed his answer, looking at Hannibal again, sea blue meeting amber. “Nothing darker than killing a monster.”

“Darkness can hold astonishing beauty. I have never seen anything more beautiful than you and El rending the monster from itself with nothing but the power of your minds. I am still in awe.”

“Beautiful and yet very dangerous,” Will sighed, taking in a deep, deep breath. It had hurt like hell to take that monster down, like his insides melted and then… nothing.

“You are certainly a paragon of both of those things,” Hannibal agreed, and nuzzled Will’s face, with his eyes closed. “I have never been more fascinated, or felt more at home with another.”

Will would need time to adjust to this news, but for right now he needed the closeness to know that all they had was not just to keep Will off his back should the doctor have killed someone here. “Just… ask before serving.”

“Very well,” Hannibal nodded, and kissed Will’s cheek, very tenderly, then stared at him. “Who knows, you may even come to prefer the taste of the wicked and worthless,” Hannibal chuckled, very softly, cradling Will with both arms.

“One step at a time,” Will offered lightly, utterly and strickenly infatuated with Hannibal, to the point he wasn’t even so sure he could trust his own judgement.

“Very well, one step at a time. However, you must admit, even as an officer of the law, there are some crimes that are difficult to punish, but nonetheless cry for justice,” Hannibal reasoned, with a twinkle in his eyes.

Will didn’t need Hannibal to say the name that was lingering on his tongue, wanting to spill out past his perfect lips-- Will already knew. “Doctor Brenner.” Admittedly, yes, Hannibal was right. After all, the man stole his mother away and likely was the death of her. Not to mention everything that had been done to El.

“Yes. He disappeared, just after you and El went missing,” Hannibal whispered, and the corners of his beautiful lips quirked upward, twitching as he did his best not to smile.

“You’d be terrible on trial, you know,” Will whispered, kissing the corner of Hannibal’s mouth, hand pressed to his chest.

“Would I?” Hannibal asked, softly, and held Will’s hand on his chest, over his beating heart. “I am not always as transparent as I am with you,” he whispered.

“Probably a good thing,” Will said, wondering just  _ where _ Hannibal had Brenner, but he could ask those questions later, when Mike had gone home and El was asleep.

“Honesty is the most expensive gift I have ever given to anyone, not everyone deserves it,” Hannibal said, and brushed the corner of Will’s lips with his thumb. “I plan, however, to lavish you with it.”


	7. Chapter 7

After dropping Mike off at home, they let El get ready for bed and brush her teeth, and then tucked her in. Hannibal read her a story while they all crammed into the queen sized bed Hannibal bought for her, snuggling. When she fell asleep, they tucked her in, and slipped downstairs.

Winston stayed with El, near her door to guard her with Wednesday, but Buster marched down the stairs with Hannibal and Will. “Buster, you shall have to remain upstairs,” Hannibal murmured, and went to the fridge to retrieve a bone for him. “Sit, please,” he said, and waited for Buster to obey before giving him his bone.

Will watched as Hannibal tried to tame his more outgoing dog, head canted slightly. He was still reeling from Hannibal’s confessions, if one could even call them that. “Good luck with that.”

Buster barked at Hannibal, and pawed at his leg. “No. Sit, please,” Hannibal repeated. Buster ran around in circles, and barked at Will, then jumped in the air and tried to grab the bone. “Buster,  _ sit _ ,” Hannibal said, firmly, and slowly, Buster sat down, but pawed at the air. “Close enough,” Hannibal chuckled, and gave Buster his bone, then pulled a key from where it was taped under a drawer, and unlocked the basement door.

“What is it exactly you’re showing me?” Will asked, though he had a good idea, he hardly wanted to be surprised. He gave Buster a pat for being good, and then followed after Hannibal.

“The man responsible for El’s misery, and your own,” Hannibal said as he opened the door, and showed Will the way down the dark, winding wooden stairs that descended into the very deep basement. It was much, much colder in the basement, which was a very bare bones set of rooms with concrete floors, blacked out windows, and drains in the cement. In the furthest room, well away from the door was another locked door, which Hannibal opened slowly to reveal Dr. Brenner, tied to a chair, gagged.

Will had been down here once to light the pilot for the house, but it was much different now, there was more here than he remembered, and of course, Brenner. He looked at the man, unable to move, unable to speak. “He’s been down here since that night?”

“He has,” Hannibal said with a nod. “He’s been fed of course, only what I imagine he might have fed his former test subjects, and treated about as well,” Hannibal said as he walked toward the ragged looking scientist, and looked him in the eye. “Good evening, doctor,” he said, and removed the gag after closing the door behind himself and Will. “You remember Will, I’m sure…”

Will could only remember the rage he felt when he learned of his mother, and it kept him intensely quiet as he stared Brenner down, arms crossed over his chest, trying gain some control over the overwhelming anger he had.

Brenner gasped when the gag was removed, and sipped the water Hannibal offered him from a cup with a straw in it, then looked up at Will with dread. “It wasn’t personal, Will. Your mother was helping us with research. She knew that… Science is sometimes extreme at the edges, sacrifices are always necessary…”

“Research beneficial to only your personal gain. What you did to Eleven was terrible. She’s just a little girl, not a weapon.” Will was more angry about Eleven than his own mother, whom he hardly remembered as it were.

“Don’t let her fool you, she’s a weapon. You’ve seen what she can do, Will, I know that. She’s not harmless. If she lost control, even for a second, she could kill anyone. When she gets older and more powerful … she might be able to kill everyone. We had to keep her with us, for everyone’s good,” Brenner tried to explain.

“For everyone’s good, but Eleven’s. So long as she retains a sense of humanity, which you very, very nearly stripped from her, she will manage her power wisely with a little help. As for attempting to shift blame upon her for being a potential danger to the larger community, well,” Hannibal chuckled and looked into Brenner’s eyes, coldly. “I would say, as a psychiatrist, that you are  _ projecting _ , Dr. Brenner.”

“Very much so,” Will sighed, disgusted with all of this. “And we’ve seen what she can do. She saved us all.” Will left himself out of the equation, he was still sure he’d been there at the wrong time, stepped in merely to be support and got caught up in the wave of destruction on the monster.

“Eleven is not a regular girl. She would be wasted on a normal childhood. Do you have any idea what we’ve managed to find with her help? The secrets we’ve uncovered? The lives we’ve saved-” Brenner went silent and pale at the sight of Hannibal pulling a knife from a drawer he had unlocked that slid open to reveal a neatly arranged tray of blades, and surgical instruments.

“What is her favorite color? Her favorite food? You made her call you Papa, did you not? These are questions any father should be able to answer about his child,” Hannibal said, with a chill in his voice. Brenner swallowed, and shifted away.    
  
“We … I … never hurt her. Not intentionally…” he whispered.   
  
“Her favorite food, Dr. Brenner. I am waiting…” Hannibal said again, looking at the perfectly clean blade, then back at their subject.

“I … “ Dr. Brenner swallowed over a dry throat. “Fruit?”

“Waffles,” Will said, walking over to Hannibal to take the blade from him, stalking toward the doctor. “But you wouldn’t know since you fed her poorly... probably mush.” Will was working himself up, anger boiling through his veins.

“Her feeding was approved by a nutritional specialist,” Dr. Brenner said, and sat back in his chair, as though trying to get away from Will.

“When she was asleep, she had a nightmare, and whispered over and over that the bad man was coming,” Hannibal said coldly, then stood behind Dr. Brenner, and held his head, firmly, exposing his neck to Will with a dark look in his eyes. “You are a bad man, Dr. Brenner. What shall be done about that?”

Will backhanded Brenner first and then bent down to get into his face, livid, seething, his the whites of his eyes turning that blood color like his brain was overworking at he bore his gaze into the man. “What  _ is _ to be done about that?”

Brenner’s white hair was disheveled, in his eyes, and he leaned back, then forward, not sure which of the men he was more desperate to get away from. “You’ve robbed Eleven of a childhood, you robbed Will of a childhood with his mother. There is nothing more precious than the happiness of a child, Dr. Brenner,” Hannibal said as his eyes went from warm brown to black with a tilt of his head. “You do not see a child when you look at El, you see a thing. I do not see a man when I look at you, I see creature less deserving of the air he breathes than a  _ pig _ .” Hannibal looked at Will, making eye contact with him.

Will didn’t even need the knife in his hand, his anger-- his mind-- did the work for him, slowly crushing Brenner’s skull with his thoughts, with the power and sheer will of his brain. Slowly, the doctor’s head started to dimple in spots, and crunching was heard between the screaming Brenner started to wail.

Hannibal held the doctor’s head still and stared at Will in wonder as he felt his skull crumble and cave in, as though Will could reduce it to clay, and then to dust with nothing but a thought. Finally, Brenner’s head fell back, and his wailing stopped. Blood poured from his nose and eyes, from his ears down his neck, over Hannibal’s fingers, which he stared at for a moment before moving his hands, and looking at Will again. “I may begin to call you Michael. You smite with the righteous grace of God’s favourite archangel,” Hannibal whispered, and walked around Brenner to Will, breathing against his mouth.

Will wiped his hand across his nose, wiping the blood that had started to drip there, the knife held loosely in his fingers, and then it dropped to the floor, his limbs weak,  eyes tired and exhausted as he looked at Hannibal up close with a tired smile. “That’s my middle name.”

Hannibal brandished his pocket-square, and held it to Will’s nose for a moment, then pulled Will into his arms to hold him up. “William Michael Graham,” Hannibal whispered adoringly before he crouched and picked Will up, like a bride, then carried him out of the room and shut the door with his foot. 

Will did not argue the way he was held, for the second time that day, too tired this time. He rested his head up against Hannibal’s neck, his jaw, arms loosely around his shoulders. Utterly exhausted, Will all but curled into a ball in Hannibal’s arms. 

Hannibal managed to carry Will through the door to the kitchen, and set him down on the sofa, very, very gently before he returned to lock the door and hide the key, again. He returned to Will with a glass of cool water, and sat next to him to help him drink. “You will sleep well tonight.”

“Like the dead,” Will whispered, sipping the water slowly, sighing heavily. The fact that he killed that man with very little real effort had yet to sink in.

“Hopefully not quite like the dead,” Hannibal smiled, the sort of short, fleeting expression that made him look years younger for an instant. He leaned closer, and brushed his lips over Will’s cheek, tenderly. 

“All I’d deserve,” Will sighed and pulled Hannibal closer. “Don’t go.”

“Where would I go?” Hannibal asked, as he pulled Will to his chest, and held him there. “You have done nothing wrong. You ended the life of a monster, just as you had before.”

Will set the glass down, his head still mentally spinning, everything settling in over his nerves slowly. “Doesn't that make me a monster in turn?” He and El were very dangerous, one wrong move, one wrong thought....

“We are a family of benevolent monsters,” Hannibal murmured softly, as he held Will. “Doctor Brennan had nothing benevolent about him. He tortured El, he did the same to countless others. To deny our nature would be unwise, to unleash our darker selves upon those who deserve it is an act of courtesy to all who had to endure them.”

Hannibal spoke as if to trying to console a wild animal. Will sighed. “Don't  tell El what we've done yet.” Will wasn’t sure the girl would understand the justice in it just yet.

“Of course not,” Hannibal assured Will as he stroked a warm hand over the back of Will’s neck and kissed his temple. “Would you care for a warm bath? I may join you.”

Not one to take a bath often, Will gave a little nod, only because he was exhausted and thought relaxing with Hannibal might be a better choice than going right to sleep like he felt like doing. “Sure.”

Hannibal picked Will up in his arms again, and shifted him against his chest, then carried him upstairs again, into the bathroom, and set him on the edge of the tub, then began to run water in the clawfoot tub.

“This tub come with the house?” Will asked, not surprised if it did. He toed off his boots, leaving them at the side and started to undo his shirt slowly.

“It did, I was very happy to see it,” Hannibal smiled as he helped Will undress, slowly, and tested the water with his hand before he added bath salts and a little oil, which made the room smell beautiful.

Will was a little sore from earlier that day, too, so the salts, he knew, would help. He reached and helped Hannibal out of his tie first, and then started to undo the buttons of his fine tailored shirt too. “Seems like something you’d enjoy.”

“If one can make life more beautiful with small pleasures, why not?” Hannibal asked as he helped Will into the water.

Will gave up on Hannibal’s fancy dressing as well and let himself be lowered into the water, sure Hannibal would do a better job of undressing himself. “A bathtub is a bathtub to me.”

“There is a palpable difference between the warmth of a copper tub deep enough to cover one’s shoulders and cradle the length of one’s body, and sitting in a plastic tub that forces it’s bather to fold nearly in half,” Hannibal said as he undressed, slowly, in full view of Will.

Will leaned back and watched Hannibal, knowing full well he was doing that on purpose. “I guess? I usually just take showers. Faster.”

“Showers have their time and place, but there is nothing quite like a nice, long bath,” Hannibal said as he stripped and then climbed in behind Will, slowly, arms around him from behind.

Will scooted forward just a little while Hannibal’s long legs worked around him and then sat back again, against Hannibal’s chest, with a sigh. It was warm and soothing actually. “Until the water goes cold.”

“We can always add more,” Hannibal smiled, and used his hands to wet Will’s curls, then began to lather shampoo into them as he massaged Will’s scalp.

Closing his eyes at the touch, Will let his head loll back into Hannibal’s hands. “True,” he murmured, trying not to doze off now.

“Your hair is so soft,” Hannibal sighed, and eased Will into the water to rinse the shampoo out, still supporting his head, gently.

Will waited until he was out of the water again, spurting a little out of his mouth. “I use two-in-one shampoo and conditioner.”

Hannibal laughed aloud at that, and shook his head. “Not anymore,” he said, as he opened a very expensive looking glass bottle of something creamy, and held it for Will to smell. “This is from Nice, France. Much better for your curls than anything from a pharmacy.”

Will canted his head back to smell it from the bottle, and then looked at Hannibal. “I don’t have a choice do I?”

“Not at the moment,” Hannibal laughed, and poured some into his hands, then smoothed it through Will’s hair. “Do you really object? I had it shipped in, just for you,” Hannibal sighed.

“Shipped in just for me? So you need to wash my hair twice?” Will asked, grumpily,  scrunching his eyes up as suds rolled down his forehead.

Hannibal brushed the little suds away with a soft laugh, and looked down at Will’s grumpy, wet face with adoration. “I see conditioner is new to you,” he smiled, and soothed Will by rubbing his shoulders with both hands as he let the conditioner sit. “It will make your hair even softer, and glossy.”

“Two-in-one,” Will repeated, but relaxed back against Hannibal again, his lithe form going limp in the warm water, and under Hannibal’s capable hands.

“You deserve better than something I’m certain you purchased from a shop that also carried fireworks and ammunition,” Hannibal chided, and kept rubbing Will’s shoulders with skilled hands, and whispered the latin names of the muscles as they passed under his palms and fingers.

Will stopped arguing, allowing Hannibal to press out the new tension in new muscle, “Fine, fine…”

Hannibal lowered Will a little more into the tub, and rinsed Will’s curls with palm fulls of water, as tenderly as though Will was a baby, and then stared down at him for a moment. “You truly are angelic, no matter how irritable my good taste makes you,” Hannibal whispered, and pulled Will to his chest again before he began to wash Will’s chest with a bar of smooth, lightly fragranced soap.

Will’s blue eyes were brighter than he had been after he murdered Brenner, less dull, and the whites were no long red, though a tad bloodshot still. “You need your eyes checked, Doctor Lecter.”

“Perhaps I am borrowing a little of your wonderful imagination,” Hannibal chuckled, and palmed the dense muscle of Will’s chest with the soap, working his way down.

"Imagining I look more angelic than I really do?” Will quirked a brow up at Hannibal, teasing really, he knew his looks were rugged and coarse, not at all fine lines and cherubic.

“Perhaps my angels have always looked like you, Will, capable and weathered by their long service, and many wars,” Hannibal whispered against Will’s ear, then kissed the delicate shell of it. “It takes very little imagination to see perfection in you, no matter what it is you believe your flaws are.”

Will hummed, nuzzling his ear against Hannibal’s head, eyes drifting closed. He could listen to Hannibal talk about anything, honestly, and feel soothed, as he did now. It hadn’t been exactly like that before he and El dissipated, but something changed, something was different.

Hannibal’s large hands traveled all over Will’s tired body, caressing and stroking his flawless skin without the need to arouse. It was enough simply to touch Will, and need nothing in return. “Are you asleep?” Hannibal asked after a long silence, lips against Will’s wet cheek.

“No,” the police chief whispered, blinking once as he looked at Hannibal out of the corner of them. “Content.”

“Do you recall my speaking to you while you were unconscious?” Hannibal asked, softly, and set the soap aside as they relaxed in the hot water.

“Vaguely,” Will said, sure that was the trigger, the warm speaking voice of Doctor Hannibal Lecter, lulling him off to the quiet of his stream.

“I spoke to you often while you slept, in many languages as your body settled into itself,” Hannibal murmured, and held Will with both arms, his thick forearms crossed over Will’s chest, possessively. “I wanted your mind to know my voice, as well as it knew your own thoughts.”

“Sometimes, my inner voice sounds like you,” Will whispered, half drowsy, as he lazed about in Hannibal’s arms, only so aware of what it was Hannibal had done, implanting himself into Will’s mind.

Hannibal had spoken to Will in his vulnerable state, while his mind was still recovering and molding itself into wholeness again. Hannibal encouraged Will’s consciousness to grow around his voice as a vine might grow around an ornate trellis. “Does it? What does it say to you, Will?”

“It’s been ever coaxing today to let my darkness free,” Will said, in not so many words, as what he heard was more on feeling than anything. “But soothing.”

“Encouraging you to release the limits you’ve previously accepted, and live within the confines of pure imagination?” Hannibal asked, his lips brushing Will’s ear as he held him close, the heat of the water making them feel almost fused together under the surface.

Will breathed in and out slowly, and nodded his head. “Yes. Accept that the darkness and fantasy of my imagination is reality now.”

Hannibal brushed his lips over Will’s cheek with a soft smile, and closed his eyes as though Will’s words were music. “It is beautiful, nothing to fear, Will, nothing to turn away from.”

“So you keep saying,” Will whispered back, turning his face to catch Hannibal’s lips in a chaste, but loving, kiss.

They fit together almost seamlessly now, beginning to blur in their moments alone. Hannibal had never been happier to forgo his neat, sharp lines to smudge into Will’s beautiful imagination and the wilderness of his mind. “The darkness can be a place of safety, it can be a home for the right creatures…”

“Wolves,” Will whispered against Hannibal’s mouth, quietly, chapped lips brushing against finely polished, smooth ones.

Hannibal nuzzled Will slowly, and nipped at Will’s lips with his teeth, playfully. “A family of wolves? Yes, sharp-toothed hunters, bonded for life in a tightly knit pack ..”

Will wrapped an arm around Hannibal’s back, under the water, maneuvering to his side to kiss him fully. “Yes, a pack of wolves. You, me, and El.”

“El, our ingenious, quiet little cub,” Hannibal laughed, and snuggled Will before he kissed his lips, more deeply than the last time.

“She’ll speak more when she learns more,” Will whispered, hip leaned in against Hannibal’s, careful not to crowd anything too precious as they kissed a little more passionately, Will’s hand going to Hannibal’s neck, resting against the side, feeling his pulse.

“We’ll teach her to howl with us,” Hannibal whispered, and kissed Will again, slowly, their tongues twisting together as his pulse began to speed against Will’s palm.

“Yes,” Will agreed. He draped his other leg over Hannibal’s hips, straddling him, he kissed down into his mouth with long licks of his tongue.

Hannibal groaned into Will’s mouth, and pulled Will into his lap. He was already half-hard, and his cock pressed against Will’s thigh, getting stiffer by the second as their bodies began to heat the water instead of the reverse.

Will let out a gasp into Hannibal’s mouth, their cocks sliding together as he rolled his hips, biting Hannibal’s lip. He reached around the sides of the tub for anything slick, oil, or...lube. He let out a chuckle. “Do you have anything in here we can use?”

Hannibal moaned, and cupped Will’s ass with both hands, kneading the taut muscle as he kissed his mouth hungrily, licking at the curves of Will’s lips. “Medicine cabinet…”

As tired and exhausted as he was, Will wanted with fierceness he couldn’t control. He stood, carefully and leaned over to look inside the cabinet, pulling out a safely stashed bottle of lube. He quirked a grin over his shoulder as Hannibal and sank back into the water, over him.

Hannibal watched Will, breathlessly, and groaned as Will sank over him again, then gripped Will’s hips to keep him exactly where he wanted him as they rocked together, and sloshed the warm water in the tub. “Will-”

Will popped the top of the lube and handed it to Hannibal as their hips rolled, sliding their lengths together slowly. Kissing Hannibal again, Will spread himself as far as he could in the tub, so Hannibal could slick him.

Hannibal was a man with an eye for detail, and as such, the lube kept in the bathroom was silicone-based, thankfully. He poured some over two of his fingers, then dragged them under water to ease into Will’s body, slicking him from the inside out as he began to work him open, and watched Will’s beautiful face as he reacted to the sensation.

The brunet panted against Hannibal’s mouth, heavily, hands on his shoulders to hold himself up, still a little sore, but the pain ebbed away with each finger thrust. “Hannibal…”

Hannibal flexed and twisted his fingers inside Will, slowly, letting the gorgeous Chief work himself down over them at his own pace as his cock throbbed in sympathy as he felt Will’s pulse from the inside. “Lean back, just  over the edge…”

Will leaned, having to move his legs to not bend them wrong, and then hoisted his arms over the edge, hips canted up, watching Hannibal. “This?”

Will’s body stretched out, with jaw-dropping beauty, and Hannibal nodded as he stared at Will and arched his own hips beneath Will, until his cock was exposed to the humid air so that he could slick himself with the waterproof lube. That done, Hannibal slid his fingers out of Will, and pressed himself in, slowly. Will’s arched back position made the locking together of their bodies even more intense than usual, and the head of Hannibal’s cock pressed directly against Will’s prostate as he breached him.

“Oh-” Will gasped, watching Hannibal as he slid his cock in, locking as with him, and then wrapped his long legs around his hips, keeping them pinned together like this. “Good.”

“Will-” Hannibal whispered, roughly, and began to guide Will over him, strong hands clutched around Will’s slim hips. Every nerve in Hannibal’s body was shivering with pleasure as he slid hip-deep into Will.

Will’s wet hair matted to his head and face as blazing blue eyes gazed lustfully at Hannibal, rutting against him to get maximum pleasure, making his jaw drop. The tip of Hannibal’s cock rubbed and prodded against Will’s prostate insistently. A flush bloomed over Will’s skin from pleasure as it pooled at the base of his spine.

Hannibal began to thrust, driving himself deeper and deeper into Will while they gazed at each other, the lock of their eyes as intense as the lock of their bodies. Water began to spill over the side of the tub, and flooded the floor. Hannibal dug his nails into Will’s back, just above his ass.

“Hannibal-” Will gasped, wrapping his arms around his shoulders now, held up only by the force of their hips now, more water out of the tub than in it.

Hannibal gripped Will’s cock, and stroked it hard as he gritted his teeth, fighting not to come. He wanted it to last, as long as possible. Will’s head fell back, lolling on his neck as he panted, groaning through each breath as Hannibal’s cock pounded into him, working him closer and closer to the edge. He dug blunt nails into Hannibal’s shoulders as his body dared to explode with pleasure.

“Will-” Hannibal gasped, shaking from lust and from holding himself back, until he couldn’t manage a second longer, and came with a deep, shaking gasp.

Feeling Hannibal come apart around him and inside him sent Will right to the edge, clutching and grasping, writhing against the other man. Finally, he came down, completely languid in Hannibal’s arms, he nosed against his neck.

Hannibal’s head fell back against the rim of the copper tub, and he sighed, utterly awestruck at the effect Will had on him. “I thought you were tired…”

“I am now,” Will whispered, raggedly, eyes already closing, finding it harder and harder to stay awake, leaning into Hannibal.

Hannibal smiled, and held Will close as they both caught their breath. “We could sleep in the tub, but we might become cold.”

Will chuckled, and with whatever strength and energy he had left, he pushed himself from the tub slowly, and grabbing one of the towels for himself and then handed Hannibal the other. “Good point.”

Hannibal climbed out of the tub, and took the towel then kissed Will deeply as both of them dripped onto the wet floor. “Not to mention a strange morning if El came looking for us.”

“Very strange,” Will sighed, leaning into the kiss a bit longer, wrapping the towel around his hips.

Hannibal guided Will into the bedroom, and then into bed, and laid down with Will, heavily.  “We should put something on…”

“Or lock the door,” Will said, though he knew that wouldn’t keep El out, so he gently pushed up and out of the bed to grab boxers, at least.

Hannibal pulled on a pair of silk pajama pants, and pulled the blankets back after he laid down, then reached an arm out for Will, “That is enough.”

Will returned and curled up into Hannibal’s arms. He snuggled in close, resting up against the doctor with an exhausted sigh. Draping an arm around Hannibal’s middle, Will fell asleep fast and hard, curling into a dreamscape.


	8. Chapter 8

Will didn’t wake the next morning when Hannibal did, clearly needing the sleep. El was up early, and tiptoed by their room and downstairs, looking around the house quietly, and then the kitchen, blinking at the waffle maker, hopefully.   
  
Hannibal was busy. He had woken early and butchered the meat downstairs, and taken care to dispose of all evidence. He was up now, preparing a roast for later. “Good morning, did you sleep well?” he asked El when she padded into the kitchen, her small feet barely making a sound. She reminded him of a baby deer with her short hair and large, brown eyes.

El nodded her head slowly, lifting her chin to see what it was Hannibal was doing, and then patted the waffle maker. “Eggos?”

“Yes, of course. You’re up early, I thought you would sleep in this morning after such a busy day yesterday,” Hannibal said, and washed his hands after setting the roast aside, then offered El an apron so that she could help make waffles.

El turned around so Hannibal could help her into the apron. Honestly, she was excited to cook with him again, and eat the homemade eggos. “I was… hungry.”

Hannibal tied the apron for her, perfectly, and pulled a little footstool closer so that she could reach the counter with a little more ease. “So was I. I am always hungry when I wake, it’s the sign of a healthy body,” he said with a smile, and moved a jar of flour close to her with a cup. “One cup of flour into our mixing bowl,” he instructed, as he set a mixing bowl on the counter, and a spoon.

El took the cup and held up one finger and then started to scoop flour from the jar into the cup, carefully. Once done she dumped it into the bowl with a big smile.

“Very good. Shall we add something special to these?” Hannibal asked, doing his best to expand El’s culinary horizons, gently. “Perhaps a dash of cinnamon? Have you tasted cinnamon before?”

“No,” El said, trying to use the words she did know more often, instead of being quiet.

Hannibal pulled a small jar of cinnamon sticks from the cupboard and offered her one. “Do not taste it, just smell. It’s a sort of spice that is warm and comforting when paired with something sweet. We could use a grater and put a little in your waffles, if you like…”

El took a stick and sniffed it gently, surprised by it and then nodded her head. “Grate it?”

Hannibal produced a very small grater, and demonstrated by rubbing the cinnamon stick over the metal, which made it snow bright, rust colored dust into the perfectly white powder. “Just like that, I’ll let you try, be careful not to grate your fingertips,” he warned. “How was Mike, yesterday? Was it good to see him?”

Doing as Hannibal showed her, she concentrated hard on doing it just right, but slowly. “Yes. He is happy again.”

“He likes you, very much,” Hannibal smiled, and brought over a carton of fresh eggs to put in the waffles, as well as some milk.

El nodded, she knew he did, she liked him, too. They were friends. She pondered the eggs for a moment, and looked at Hannibal. “How?”

“Like so,” Hannibal demonstrated by tapping the egg firmly against the side of the bowl until it cracked, and then let the yolk and white drop in before he set the shell in the garbage next to the counter. “A nice firm tap should do it, then be careful not to let any shell into the bowl.”

El blinked, and then tapped it on the bowl, not hard enough, and then did it again, and the egg cracked enough that she could do as Hannibal had, and dumped the contents into the bowl. She tossed the shell out with a happy glee lighting her eyes.  
“Very good, very good,” Hannibal chuckled and brought down the other ingredients, measuring them with spoons before he gave them to El to put into the mixture. “Cinnamon goes very well with apples. We could make an apple sauce to go on top of them, and a little bacon at the side…” he suggested, looking back at the meat on the cutting board.

“Apple… sauce?” she asked, helping with the milk, and then took the offered spoon to start stirring it up the best she could.

Hannibal picked up a shiny red apple and sliced a piece off, then offered it to El, with the glee of a snake in a garden. “Apple.”

She took the apple piece and ate it, tasting it. She looked at the batter. “In it?” she asked.

“I don’t see why not, but let’s make them smaller, shall we?” Hannibal said, and presented El with a paring knife, then showed her how to dice the apple after taking one for himself. “It is very important to be careful of the blade. It is very useful, but very sharp.”

El gave a small nod, watching Hannibal cut very small pieces. Then, she started to do the same, taking her time, making sure they were perfect. She loved cooking with Hannibal, it was learning things that were new and had nothing to do with her mind powers.

“When you have a little experience, you can create something like this,” Hannibal said, as he used an apple to sculpt petals and leaves, then assembled them using the blade of the knife to make an orchid.

Stopping to watch Hannibal sculpt, Eh marveled at the flower with her big, brown eyes. She touched it, just to see if it were real. “Wow…”

“Very sharp, precise instruments can be dangerous, but they can also create thing of great beauty,” he smiled. “A dull knife could never have managed that.”

“Pretty,” El whispered and smiled up at Hannibal, and went back to chopping her apples slowly, carefully.

“Very pretty,” Hannibal nodded with a fatherly smile, and set the little orchid aside for later, then helped El finish putting the rest of the ingredients into the batter. “Did you sleep well? No nightmares?” Hannibal asked, and checked the heat of the waffle iron.

She shook her head again. “Winston was there,” she said, looking down at the dog that refused to leave her side. She stirred the batter once more, just until everything was in it and incorporated as Hannibal instructed.

“He’s a very good dog, isn’t he?” Hannibal asked, looking down at the fluffy dog with a little smile. “I know a man in New York who raises dogs and trains them to help people who have nightmares. If you have one, these dogs wake you gently, and help you go back to sleep again, nightmare-free.”

“Have one?” she asked, not sure if Hannibal was offering or just talking about it. She went to get the butter for the waffle iron as Will had done yesterday.

“You can have one, if you would like,” Hannibal said as he watched El move to the fridge, more charmed by her by the second. “Winston will still be here, of course.”

“Good,” she answered and set the butter down and turned the iron on, remembering how it was done. “Like Winston? Or Buster? Wednesday?”

“Yes, he or she would become one of our dogs, and live here, with us,” Hannibal assured her, and relished the word, and the thought of ‘our’ anything. It felt as though this family had been waiting for all of them to arrive, and take their perfectly fitted places.

El liked that answer and sliced off butter with a knife to rub over the waffle iron. “Family.”

Hannibal practically glowed at that, and set syrup on the table as he found it in the cupboard, then looked at El where she stood on a step stool, making breakfast. “I think of you and Will as my family,” Hannibal said, softly, and honestly.

She nodded, smiling, and went to get the ladle for the batter. “... not like… papa?”

“He was not very kind to you, was he?” Hannibal asked softly, and handed her the ladle so that she did not have to go far. “I would never make you do something you did not want to do, nor would Will.”

She smiled up at Hannibal and went back to the stool and stepped up, she started to ladle a bit into the iron. “No.” She put the lid down. “No?”

The iron steamed as it cooked the batter they made, and Hannibal stood behind El, to make certain she did not burn herself somehow. “But we want to take care of you, and have you in our family. We are what Papa should have been.”

“Papas?” She asked, tilting her head up at Hannibal with a smile. “Mine? My papas?”

“Yes,” Hannibal said softly, his throat squeezing a little at her smile as she asked. He stroked one palm over her cropped hair, softly. “We are  _ your _ Papas, now.”

She set the ladle in the bowl against the side and hugged Hannibal tight around the waist, nuzzling her head into his chest from where she stood on the stool. “Thank you, papa.”

Hannibal swallowed hard, and picked El up in his arms, hugging her. “You are welcome, El,” he whispered, squeezing her before he set her down on her step stool again.

Smiling happily up at Hannibal, she turned to the waffle maker and opened it up, and took the tongs like last time to pull the done waffle out.

It was as official as Hannibal needed, and he knew he would submit the already completed adoption forms the next morning. His daughter, better yet … their daughter.

El hummed as she put more batter in and closed the lid, one of the songs Mike liked. She was happy to have a home now, if nothing else, and not one, but two papas who cared for her quite a bit. The town was hardly safe, but for now all was quiet.

Hannibal made sauce in the background, simmering and flavoring as they worked together, quietly, a pan of fresh bacon cooking beside it. “Is your room to your liking?”

“Yes,” she answered. The room was room and better than a fort made of chairs and sleeping bags. She pulled out another waffle, and started the next.

“Have you ever seen fireflies before? They’re very beautiful.” Hannibal smiled, and set the first waffle on a plate in the warm oven.

El’s room was filled with painted fireflies. She loved them. “No, I never have.”

“We shall see if we can find some. My sister, when she was not quite as old as you are, loved them. She used to keep them in jars, with leaves and bits of grass.”

El blinked, thinking that sounded rather cruel, but didn't say anything. “They live here?”

“They do, I’ve seen them between trees, at night from the house. Perhaps tonight, you and Will and I can go look at them. They are like fragments of stars with wings that fly around you, and don’t bite or sting. They are delicate creatures of great beauty.”

El nodded quickly, making another waffle after taking the other out. “I would like that.”

“I think Will might enjoy them, too,” Hannibal said, thoughtfully, and began to set the table for family brunch. “Do you have a favorite color, El?” Hannibal recalled asking Brenner what it was, and wondered whether or not El had one, yet. She was, in many ways, like a toddler, and many ways far more advanced than most adults.

“Color?” She asked, looking down at her clothes picked out and purchased for her, but she didn’t know if she loved the color yellow, or the color blue, nothing stood out to her completely. “No?”

“When you decide, let me know,” Hannibal said with a little smile, and selected the darkest red apple from the bunch in the bowl, so dark it was nearly merlot colored, and showed it to El. “This is my favorite color,” he said, whispering, as though it was a secret.

“Apple?” El laughed, but smiled, knowing he meant the color of the apple. She gave a little nod, and pulled out the last waffle and plated it.

“Red,” Hannibal smiled, and winked at her, then used his knife to make two more flowers from the apple, something to dress up their plates. “When you find your favorite color, you will know. You’ll be able to look at it forever, and not tire of it.”

El looked around as Hannibal carved the apple, but nothing really stood out to her yet, she loved all the colors. She went to wash her hands and then turned the waffle iron off. “What if… I never do?”

Hannibal watched El, and set the last fork just so next to Will’s plate. “Then perhaps your mind has made openness more important than picking a favorite. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. Perhaps your favorite color simply hasn’t been invented yet.”

Blinking, she thought about that as she put the folded napkins on the table at each setting. “Maybe,” she finally agreed.

“Perhaps you will have to invent it, and that will become my new favorite color. Of course, favorites can change over time, just as people can change over time, to a certain extent, as you grow, you become a little different. Sometimes this means you become wiser,” Hannibal chuckled a little, “sometimes, not.”

El loved hearing Hannibal talk, he was kind to her, and didn’t talk down to her at all. She smiled over at him as she set everything  _ just _ right on the table, and went to get the juice from the fridge. “Everyone changes?”

“Everyone grows,” Hannibal said, and opened a window, then took a knife in hand. He cut a fully-opened bloom from the rosebush that grew just against the side of the house, right up to the kitchen windows.. The bloom was deep orange, a sunset color, almost russet. He picked a bud that had just begun to open as well, and brought them to El. “This little rosebud changed into this rose. It remained a rose, of course, it would never become a daisy, or a carnation. It’s too grand, and possessed of too many thorns. But it did open and grow. That is how people can change, only within the limits of their truest natures. When you become aware of what you are, denying it is as tragic as a rose plucking it’s own petals to look more like a daisy.”

Touching the roses gently, she nodded her head, understanding. She would still be here, she would still have her powers, but she would grow, she would change, for the better, she hoped. “I understand.”

“Of course you do, you are remarkably perceptive,” Hannibal said, with pride, and arranged the flowers in a bud-vase to place in the center of the table for color. “Would you like to have a few classes? Not in the school quite yet with other children, at home with me. We’ll work on helping you catch up on what you’ve missed. I am sure it won’t take long, at all.”

She brightened, though she had wanted to go back to school with Mike and the others, she was also aware she wouldn’t fit in. “Yes. I-I would like that very much.”

“We’ll start tomorrow, then. Were you already taught to read?” Hannibal asked, not wanting to assume one way or the other, and then embarrass El when they sat down to learn.

“Yes.” She nodded, and sat down at the table, only then realizing Will was not up yet with them.

“That will make everything much easier,” Hannibal assured her, and sat with El, then looked upstairs, as though he could see through the floor. “Shall we wake him?”

“He’s very tired,” she said, clearly not sure if they should or not.

“We could eat here, and then bring some to Will in bed when we are finished,” Hannibal suggested. He knew precisely why Will was so tired today, and hesitated to wake him.

El nodded, though the food would get cold, she was sure Will wouldn’t mind. Some of the waffles were still in the oven, keeping warm, after all.

“We will begin with science, art, literature, and some mathematics. I’d also like to introduce you to music, when my harpsichord arrives,” Hannibal said as he dished up their plates, offering El some of the bacon with a glint in his eye.

“Harpsichord?” she asked, slowly testing the word out in her mouth, unsure what it was.

"A musical instrument, it sounds like a piano, but lighter. You will see. Do you like music?” Hannibal asked as he served her, and sat down.

She shrugged. “I have only heard what Mike listens to.”

“One moment,” Hannibal said, to excuse himself from the table, and stepped into the other room to put a record on. Classical music, a piano and violin, played through the lower level of the house. “This is Mozart,” Hannibal explained, as he sat down again.

Nothing like what Mike and his friends liked, or listening to, but El found it soothing and less tiring to listen to. “I like it.”

“It’s peaceful, isn’t it?” Hannibal smiled. “I have many records, we will see what you like best, later. You may listen to anything you like at any time.

El’s smile brightened, and she got to eating, starved now, listening to wonderfully melodic music playing in the background.

“I thought perhaps when you are feeling better that we could go into Baltimore and purchase some clothing, something you can pick out yourself. Clothing is very personal, it’s best if you select what you like.”

“Baltimore?” El asked, saying the word slowly. “Where is that?”

“Many miles East of here, where I lived before I came to Hawkins and practiced medicine,” Hannibal answered, always happy to educate El.

“A doctor.” She remembered that now, but surely not one like doctor Brenner.

“A doctor who helps people with their minds and emotions. I’m called a psychiatrist,” Hannibal explained softly. “When people are angry, or sad, or confused, they come to see me.”

“He lets them talk to him about their problems and then he nicely offers suggestions to them,” Will said from behind them, a robe wrapped around him, otherwise in just a pair of boxers. He shuffled over, still looking exhausted. He smiled at El as he took a seat at the table space at the table. “Waffles again?”

“Apple cinnamon waffles,” Hannibal said with a smile at Will, and stood to fetch Will’s breakfast from the oven. “We did not want to wake you, and we were about to bring you brunch in bed when you were ready,” he said, apologetically.

“It’s okay. I only woke when I heard the music,” Will yawned, rubbing his eyes with his palms. “It smells good.” He turned his attention to El,leaning his forearms against the table. “Did you help again?”

El nodded slowly with a smile. “I did. I cut the apples.”

“She did much more than that. She cut the apples, she mixed the ingredients, and poured the batter, then pulled the waffles out,” Hannibal said, proudly, and set a plate garnished with the orchid he had cut from the apple earlier in front of Will, bacon on the side. “All I did was guide her.”

“Well, it smells amazing,” Will said, quietly, and took up his fork to dig in, famished more than he thought he had been. He gave a little hum, nodding at El. “Very good.”

“She’s becoming a very adept cook,” Hannibal smiled, his eyes shining at El as he poured Will some coffee. It was a perfect moment, Mozart filtered in from the living room, Will’s dogs were lying around them quietly, and they were all happy and at the dinner table together. “Tomorrow we are going to begin lessons.”

“Lessons?” Will asked, stuffing bacon into his mouth, and chewing it slowly, trying not to inhale no matter how hungry.

“School, nothing formal, but something to help El catch up to her peers. I’m sure her mind is hungry for more information about the world around her,” Hannibal said with a smile at El, charmed by her inquisitive intelligence.

“She’ll catch on quick,” Will commented, between bites of food that he was inhaling down like there’d be nothing left if he didn’t.

“I’m sure she will,” Hannibal said fondly. “We’ve also discussed a therapy dog,” he said, with a nod at El to tell Will what she thought about it.

El nodded enthusiastically about the dog. “I would like one, please.”

Will chuckled, and nodded his head, washing down food with his coffee. “I don’t mind.”

“I did not imagine you would,” Hannibal said, as he finished his dish, and set his fork down neatly, then sipped his coffee while enjoying the familial atmosphere.

“So, like an actual therapy dog? Pretty new concept,” Will said, his plate clean, he leaned back against the chair.

"It is new, but I am acquainted with an associate involved in the training of them for soldiers with post-traumatic stress,” Hannibal said. “The dogs are trained to halt nightmares, flashbacks and dissociative episodes, as well as to provide a feeling of physical reassurance and safety.”

Will nodded. “It sounds good. We can get one?”

“I’ve already inquired, and yes, there is a dog he thinks would be perfect who just completed a study, and is ready to go to a permanent home. The dog’s name is … Pickles,” Hannibal said, doing his best to imbue the ridiculous name with dignity.

“Pickles?” Will laughed, and looked over at El. “Have you had a pickle?”

She shook her head slowly.

Will grinned over at Hannibal. “She needs a pickle before meeting Pickles.”

“I don’t think I have any in the house,” Hannibal chuckled, and took his own and El’s finished plates to the sink to rinse them. “A pickle is a sort of food, difficult to describe…”

“It’s a fermented cucumber. We’ll find some,” Will said with a chuckle, shaking his head. “Grocery stores have them.”

Hannibal made a little face at the mention of grocery store pickles, and shook his head to himself as he washed the dishes. “If you like those, we’ll make some, properly,” he promised El. He was eager to tell Will what El had called them, earlier. 

“You’re really not going to find a lot of fresh cucumber around here this time of year,” Will said, reading brows at Hannibal as he sat back to drink his coffee, relaxed. “The stories produce area might have hot housed ones.”

“A shame, I will see what I can do.” He smiled at El again, she reminded him more and more of a little fawn, silent and observant with slender limbs and large, dark eyes. “Have you ever had Christmas before?”

“Christmas?” El asked, blinking her big brown eyes at Hannibal, and then Will. “What’s Christmas?”

“It’s a Holiday, the biggest of the year. We bring a tree into the house, and decorate it with lights and ribbons, we have big meals, and everyone has presents under the tree that they unwrap on Christmas morning,” Hannibal said, already planning out the gifts Will and El would find beneath the tree on their first Christmas morning together as a family.

“Presents?” El looked confused, and Will reached to pat her hand, looking her in the eye.

“Gifts. You buy the people you love gifts, thoughtful ones. You wrap them and put them under the tree and everyone opens one Christmas morning,” Will explained and then sat back, again. “I haven’t celebrated Christmas in years.”

“You will this year,” Hannibal smiled, with a devious gleam in his eyes as he rose to refill their coffees, and El’s orange juice. “We all will. I usually celebrate with a massive dinner party in Baltimore and attend as many holiday gatherings as possible, but Christmas day itself is … quiet for me.”

Will watched Hannibal with a gaping mouth for a moment, aware they might have to sit through Christmas parties. The idea made him want to run back to his trailer quick. “You’re not throwing one this year are you?”

“A dinner party?” Hannibal asked, and batted his toffee-brown eyes at Will. “It would be rude not to, don’t you think? Nothing enormous. In Baltimore, I had fifty guests at a time.”

Blanching, Will took the refilled mug of coffee and drank it to hide his expression. El merely blinked between them both. “A party? Is that like Mike’s Snow Ball he invited me to?”

“Somewhat. Mike would certainly be invited. A party is a gathering of people where we share food and socialize,” Hannibal said. “You can dress up, of course, we’ll get you whatever you might like to wear for a special occasion.”

“Another dress?” she asked, having grown used to them in the last few days, and when she was with her friends.

“Do you like dresses?” Hannibal asked, not about to assume a preference for fashion and El’s comfort.

“Sometimes,” El answered, drinking her juice, all of them happily full and conversing around the table.

“You can wear anything you want,” Will pointed out. “A dress, pants, a skirt…”

“Of course. If you’d like a dress, we’ll find the prettiest dress you can imagine,” Hannibal promised with a fatherly smile.

Somehow they managed to move on from the party topic, which Will knew meant bad news on his part. He stood and took their plates to the sink , wash them.

“A pink one?” El asked.

“Any color you like. A pink one if you’d like one, of course. By then your hair may be long enough for a little barrette, which would look very pretty.”

“Pretty,” she repeated back, softly, and touched her hair, which had grown a little bit.

Hannibal leaned over and touched El’s hair with a nod, looking at it. “I think it may curl a little like Will’s, once it’s longer,” he said, smiling fondly at the tiny bend to her growing hair.

She blushed a little at thought, and Will looked over at her. “Could, might look better on you than me.”

“It is very nice hair already,” Hannibal reminded her with a little pat to her hair, and squeezed her shoulders in a soft hug before he took her plate. “If you do not want to grow it, no need at all. You are already pretty.”

El wanted long pretty hair like Mike’s sister, she was so beautiful. “I want to,” she said very quietly, and got up to help them clear the table.

Will washed the dishes, and set them in the sink and El dried them.

Hannibal watched the two of them, closely, and smiled a little at them. “Why don’t you take the dogs out to play, El? Will and I can clean. You cooked, after all.”

El nodded again and was able to gather the three dogs up with no issue at the back door, and unlocked it to let them out, running after them. Will watched her with a little smile on his face as she chased them around, and then vice versa.

Hannibal smiled at Will, then at El as they watched her through the window. “She asked me this morning if we were her new papas,” Hannibal murmured, one hand against Will’s back.

Will paused his washing of the batter bowl to look at Hannibal. “She did? What did you say?” Will had always wanted to be a father, but there had never been a way for it, and he worried about handing down his unique abilities.

“I said we were, of course,” Hannibal answered as he looked into Will’s eyes. “I’ve already completed the request for adoption, I intend to send it to tomorrow. Given my background in psychiatry, and financial stability, I don’t anticipate any problems.”

“ _ You’ll _ be her papa then,” Will said, realizing they could never adopt her together, it was simply unheard of, not to mention they’d only been together a short while.

“Legally, perhaps, but in our day to day life, you will be there too. She did not ask if I was her papa, she asked if we were both to be her papas. She longs for a family, Will, perhaps we all do,” Hannibal said. He knew they had not been together long, but everything felt perfect. It would be foolish to deny perfection for the sake of it not having existed for very long.

It would be tricky to pull off and not be found out, and considerably rough on Will who would have no legal right over her should something go wrong. “You want us to all be a family?” They had talked briefly about it, but they never called it was it is.

Hannibal laid his hand over Will’s, and squeezed it. “We are, I think, growing into one no matter what we call ourselves. My deepest desire has always been to have a family, but for obvious reasons, that is a dream I was not sure I could ever realize, while remaining myself.”

Will nodded slowly in understanding, as if Hannibal had read his mind. “You’re the more stable one for parenting anyway, according to the way the law will see it.”

“You are essential to my happiness,” Hannibal admitted, as he turned Will by the waist to face him, and looked into his blue eyes. “I admit, we have not known one another long, but deeply. We will never be permitted to be El’s parents in the eyes of the law, but I assure you Will, we are in my eyes, and in El’s as well.”

“I know,” Will said, resting hands up on Hannibal’s shoulders, gazing up at him, with still very tired eyes. “I’m thrilled she wants us, actually.”

Hannibal swallowed hard, and rested his face against Will’s holding him close as he savoured the feeling of their hearts beating together, finding a shared rhythm as he stroked his hand down the back of Will’s spine through his shirt, caressing him. “I feel as though this house was waiting for us to chase it’s ghosts away with our shared happiness. I feel less haunted since you and El have come into my life. I do not want to change that, Will. If that means making my residence here permanent, that is what I will do.”

“We can always stay here and wait for you if you get called away,” Will offered, though he hoped Hannibal would just relocate closer to them. He wasn’t sure El would enjoy the noisy, busy city life.

“El needs stability, a predictable routine, and structure,” Hannibal said, with deep conviction, and looked into Will’s eyes. “I can adapt to small town life much more smoothly than she would be able to adapt to a large city, which I’m sure you have already considered.”

“I have.” Will slid his hands up Hannibal’s back and gripped his shoulders pressing them closer together. “She’s lucky the government didn’t take her…”

“Very lucky. Now that she has us, however, I don’t think she has much need for that luck. I pity anyone who attempts to take our child,” Hannibal murmured, still watching El through the window as he held Will.

“No one is going to take her,” Will promised, and if they did, they had El and himself to contend with, along with Hannibal, who was a fierce creature of his own right.

Hannibal looked out the window a moment longer, and went very still before he spoke. “After my parents died, I was left alone, with my little sister. It was my job to protect her. She adored me, and I her,” he sighed, arms tightening a little around Will before he went silent again. It hurt to speak of her, as though he was using a long-broken leg that had never healed, and tried to walk on it again. His usually smooth cadence was stilted, only able to speak a little about her at a time. Too much was impossible. 

Some of his memories of Mischa’s death still rendered him mute, more than twenty years later.   
  
Will knew just from the way Hannibal held tighter and stopped talking about it that Mischa was long since dead, and he had not protected her the way he had wanted. El was his second chance. Will leaned to kiss Hannibal softly on the lips. “I know you’ll do everything you can to protect El. So will I.”

Hannibal realized when Will kissed him, that he had stopped breathing, and began to breathe again when Will’s lips touched his own. He closed his eyes, and then opened them after the kiss to look at Will again, with a nod. “I know the agony of missing a child too well, which was what motivated me to come out here, and help. I never want to feel that agony again,” Hannibal whispered, one hand against Will’s chest.

“And you did help. In more ways than I bet you thought you would,” Will said, staying close, able to feel Hannibal sadness with his memories.

Hannibal kissed Will for that, softly and sweetly, and rested their faces together as they breathed together. “I love you,” he admitted, the words spilling out of his lips, as unavoidable an impulse to say the truth as a beat of his heart.

“Do you?” Will heart was a flutter, he wasn’t sure what to say, but a smile spread across his face, and he kissed Hannibal again, longer this time, lips melding together softly, just as their souls seemed to have. “I love you.”

Hannibal felt his heart seem to swell and race when Will said those words to him. His dark eyes flooded with tears from the sheer emotional magnitude of hearing Will’s love for him, and he cupped Will’s face with his hands and kissed him with raw, searing passion at odds with the dapper clothes Hannibal wore. Hannibal kissed Will as though Will were home from a long, long war; as though in some other upside-down universe, he had waited years and years to hear Will admit that he loved him.

Will held his hands over Hannibal’s, at his wrists, keeping them there as they kissed. Everything was slotted perfectly into place, everything felt as though this was as it should be, that somewhere in another world, perhaps this was their destiny too, and they were just catching up.


End file.
